First Presbyterian Church
February 25, 2024, Lent 2C
Three Words
The Revised Common Lectionary offers as its Gospel reading for today only the last eight verses of what we just read, leaving out Peter's great success at naming Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One. It was my choice (along with many other preachers) to reinstate the four verses at the beginning, partly because they are critical for understanding and interpreting the eight verses that follow, and frankly also because as badly as Peter comes off in those eight verses, it only seems fair to allow him his moment of glory, so to speak, especially since those are few and far between for him in this gospel.
It also helps this sermon to fulfill one of the long-held traditions of Protestant preaching: being presentable in three parts, good Trinitarian reference that suggests. In this case, one can fulfill that three-part quality by taking note of three specific words, spread roughly evenly throughout the text, that are key to understanding just what is going on in this reading. Furthermore, these three words frequently fall prey to misunderstanding, as their meanings have changed significantly since Mark first wrote them into his account of the life of Jesus.
The first word is the one that Peter came up with: "messiah".
If you ask a modern Christian what that word means, the answer might be something like "well, Jesus, of course." One could even argue that Peter's declaration marked the beginning of naming Jesus specifically with that description. Where things get challenging here is in sorting out exactly what Peter meant by calling Jesus "messiah."
It's worth noting, though, that Jesus does not apply that term to himself, at least not in Mark's gospel until his very last night before the crucifixion. In most cases Jesus refers to himself as "Son of Man," as in both verses 31 and 38 of this reading. Interestingly, that reference - "Son of Man" - places an emphasis, as you might guess, on the mortality, and therefore the humanity of Jesus, which is a different emphasis indeed than is found in the word "messiah."
Additionally, another part of the challenge is that the expectation of a messiah, an anointed one sent by God, wasn't necessarily a long-standing tradition in Judaism; in fact, one doesn't find the world itself in the Old Testament in most translations. As a result, the word got appropriated in some interesting ways and had some interesting meanings attached to it. By the time Peter was speaking that word, it had (in the minds of many though not all) taken on a meaning specific to this time: a political and/or military leader who would deliver the land from its hated Roman Empire occupiers. (As you might guess, this wouldn't be the last time the term "Messiah" got associated with such a figure.)
We can't be certain what was on Peter's mind when he made his claim about Jesus; we don't know if he was expecting Jesus to be a "military messiah" or not. We can be certain, though, he wasn't expecting Jesus to respond with the second of three words of emphasis here: "Satan."
For those of a certain generation, that word is now mostly associated with a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live some decades ago, in which Dana Carvey, dressed as a matronly woman known most simply as the Church Lady, got to exclaim that name at least once, when wondering if his guest had succumbed to temptation at the hands of said character. Even today, one is at least as likely if not more so to hear that figure named the Devil. While the name shows up plenty in the New Testament, again, it's not so prominent in Hebrew scripture. Perhaps its most prominent appearance is in the book of Job, where (in its original Hebrew form ha'satan) the word designates the one who comes before God to argue for the testing of Job.
Note that Hebrew designation; ha'satan would be more literally tranlated as "the accuser" or "the adversary"; before it was a name, it was a description, and perhaps to grasp the full significance of Jesus's charge against Peter, we need to focus less on the character we associate with he word and pay more attention to what that word meant to those who spoke and heard it. In short, Jesus is accusing Peter - this fellow who had been numbered among his disciples since the beginning - of being an adversary. Jesus is calling Peter an enemy.
The thing is, he's right.
Again let us remember that mission statement verse from back in chapter 1: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." That's why Jesus was here on this earth. That was the whole point. Anyone who would oppose that is the adversary. No matter how much they have the right answers to the questions, no matter how close they've been or how long they've been with Jesus or any other thing that might be true about them, to oppose Jesus's word and work was to put oneself in opposition to Jesus. No other way about it. Jesus had already faced The Adversary back in the wilderness, and he had dealt with plenty of demons by this time. None of them had stood in the way of Jesus's work, and Peter wasn't going to either.
That brings us to one more word that we might need to reconsider in this context: "cross," as in Jesus's command in verse 34: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." I don't think anyone tries to deny the truth of this verse, at least not overtly, but there are some voices that try to numb us to its power.
I'd guess that at some point we've all probably used a phrase like "well, that's my cross to bear" in reference to some obstacle or impediment we might face in our daily lives. Right now, I could speak of this ongoing bout of vertigo or something like it as "my cross to bear," as I might have spoken of any number of other health issues over the last decade-plus. One does not want to minimize the challenges we face on a daily basis, but one does not want to confuse them with the "cross" Jesus bore in his ministry on earth. There was the physical cross, and then there was the cross that brought him to bear the physical cross.
That cross was the cross of living as if the Beatitudes were really to reflect how we see others; living our ives to treat "the least of these" as he describes in Matthew 25 as we would treat Jesus; giving our ministry and our mission and our time to meet the needs of those who live invisibly among us, not getting by, not being valued or loved, being invisible and easily stepped over or stepped upon without our being troubled one bit.
See, if we do that, "the Empire" won't like it. Whether it be the Roman Empire or the British Empire or whatever corporate empire one might choose to speak of, the only one we're supposed to serve in their view is that empire, and caring for poor or the meek or the hungry or the sorrowful interferes with that empire doing what it wants to do with us. And that empire, whichever one rules in our world, won't stand for it.
So if we truly take up that cross, denying ourselves, and follow Jesus in spirit and in truth, there will be suffering. And if Peter couldn't follow, Jesus wasn't going to let him stand in the way.
Peter wasn't through bungling things in front of Jesus. The transfiguration story (which we heard two weeks ago but actually comes in the chapter after this one) shows that Peter hadn't gotten it yet, and the events of Holy Week suggest that even then, Peter was trying to avoid Jesus meeting that fate. By the time of the book of Acts, though, something has finally gotten through to Peter; after all of his bungling and clumsiness of word and deed, he emerges as the vocal and spiritual leader of the early church in Jerusalem after Jesus's resurrection and ascension.
I suppose, after considering these three words, we might want to ponder three questions:
1) do we really know what it means to call Jesus "Messiah"?
2) are we ever guilty of making ourselves an adversary to Jesus?
3) do we really know what means to take up our cross and follow Jesus?
For the challenge, Thanks be to God. Amen.
Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #439, O My Soul, Bless Your Redeemer; #---When Jesus told his followers; #718, Take Up Your Cross, the Savior Said
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