Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

For the 17th Lord’s Day after Trinity (Proper 24b) the readings are:

Isaiah 50:4-10
Psalm 116:1-9
1 Peter 4:12-19
Mark 8:27-38

In our Gospel reading today, we’re confronted with the very real danger that we may claim to follow Jesus Christ, but in reality be His adversary, His Satan. Why? Because despite our profession of faith – it’s quite possible that, like the Apostle Peter, our plans for our life, our understanding of our mission is at odds with what Jesus is about. I’m not talking about demon possession, but I am talking about wasting our lives by living them without regard to Jesus’ priorities. Have you ever thought about confronting “The Satan in Me?”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As Jesus is marching towards Jerusalem He first stops to clarify for His disciples just who He is and what His mission is about! Some say He’s doing this in Casesarea Phillipi because that Herod is less of a danger to Him than the Herod (Antipas) who ruled over Jerusalem. Perhaps so. That makes sense – John 6:15 reminds us that people would gladly have made him just the kind of King the Romans would put to death instantly.

Whatever else was going on behind the scenes, Caesarea Phillipi was a hot bed of idolatry and also Emperor worship. There in one of the most pagan places that could be near the Holy Land, where the ugliness of paganism was so apparent, where the power of darkness was unquestioned, Jesus asks “who do people say that I am?”

Whatever their answer, it would stand in direct contrast to the statement made by the region itself: that Caesar is Lord. So who is Jesus?

The first answers they gave – who the people said Jesus might be were predictable and safe: “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say You are one of the other prophets.”

These answers required no commitment on the part of those giving them. They are piously repeating what they’ve heard  but not sticking their own necks out.

So Jesus asks them emphatically – so who do YOU say that I am?

This answer will change the course of their lives. They have seen Him heal and do the works only the Messiah can do. The backdrop behind them is a city dedicated to Caesar as Lord.  Their answer could get them killed by the Romans. Their answer could make them hated by their own people even more than they despised those hayseed Galileans anyway.  The way they answer might also mean that, in addition to the cost they’d paid to follow Jesus already, there might be more they had to do.

So it was a costly answer they were being asked to make.

In the early church, Christians could be spared a painful death if they would only tell their Roman Captors that “Caesar is Lord”. But saying “Jesus is Lord” could get them tortured, killed or killed by being thrown to wild animals.

What do you say if you’re trapped in Nazi Germany and you’re a stone’s throw from the headquarters of the Secret Police and you’re walking with an “enemy of the state” who asks you if what you believe about what they’re doing?

What do you say? Jesus asked them and Jesus looks us in the eye and asks us – “Who do YOU say that I am?” And the question remains – are you willing to risk your life on the answer?

When the silence broke, Peter opened his mouth and spoke up: “You are the Messiah!”

That answer changes everything.

In that very place where the Roman Emperor was worshipped Peter says that this Jesus who’s standing there with them is the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, the one that all the Jewish nation had been looking forward to – the One who would bring all God’s promises to a climax!

You knew that was the right answer because Jesus told them not to tell anyone – it wasn’t God’s Time.

Now he begins to explain to them what He  meant when he said there’d be a time for fasting when the bridegroom had been taken from them (Mk. 2:19-20).

He explained to them that as the “Son of Man”, he must first become a prophetic parable like Ezekiel who was called the “Son of Man”, he must become the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 if he is to fulfill God’s call. But he must be a prophetic riddle and become the sacrifice who dies to take away the sins of God’s people before he can be the “Son of Man” of Daniel 7:13-14  and receive dominion over the nations and rule as God’s appointed King (Psalm 2; 1 Cor 15:25-28).

For Peter, it was too much to believe that in order for the Messiah to reign triumphantly he must first suffer terribly and then die redemptively.  Rise victoriously? Who’d ever heard of that?

So Peter decided to talk some sense into Jesus. What Jesus had just said wasn’t part of Peter’s agenda for the Messiah.

Think of it.

If the Real Live Messiah gets killed…what’s going to happen to his sidekicks? It can’t be good. Remember Bonnie and Clyde we’d say. Remember Ahab and Jezebel Peter might have said. The sidekicks always died too.

So Peter gives Jesus a piece of his mind only to have Jesus set him straight. Peter’s ideas are so out of touch with God’s plans, that if Peter insists on having his way, Peter will be an adversary, a “Satan”. And like Satan, Peter’s words invite Jesus to succumb to the temptations He has already defeated once (Mt 4:8-10).

You can understand Peter’s situation. We too are a people who are bent on a mission. Whether we have a “mission statement” or not, we are all people on a mission – either one bent on serving ourselves or one bent on serving Jesus Christ.

Peter’s mission became evident. Unfortunately, his mission for his life – fame, riches, and glory perhaps – were diametrically opposed to Jesus’ mission.

That’s what makes Peter’s blunder so horrendous. Like the demons who could confess Israel’s creed or Shema all day (Deut 6:4; James 2:19), Peter offers the correct confession but he is in danger, unless he repents, of putting himself at odds with the true Mission of Jesus.

How do your (our) confession and mission stack up? The most dangerous thing for orthodox believers is to congratulate ourselves on our good confession only to deceive ourselves when it comes to grasping the implications of what Jesus came to do for our own lives.

So that Peter would no longer be confused about the costliness of following Jesus the Messiah, and so we might not be, Jesus makes know the requirements of being a disciple. Jesus tells us how to align our MISSION with our CONFESSION.

Jesus offers us the Way, along with a Warning:

In a world where people follow others for what they can get, like scavengers, or hyenas tracking a herd to see what will drop away for them to pick up, some follow Jesus for what they can gain.

Jesus says – If anyone wants to be my follower, it’s time to recognize that life as you knew it – a life that you lived for yourself and for your own pleasure is over.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it like this: “When Jesus calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

To begin to follow we must want to follow Jesus more than we wish to follow our own hopes and dreams. We must die is to turn from our selfish ways – that means stop telling Jesus what He’s going to do! (That didn’t work for Peter. It’s never worked for me. It’s called submission to God’s plan and providence. It hurts!)

The extent to which we must follow Jesus means that, like Him, we must carry our cross.  For St. Paul in Galatians 6:14, carrying the cross had come to mean that his life had no meaning for himself or the world as he used to know it apart from what each day meant for the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We don’t want to go there – someone might call us fanatical! It might mean that our interest in Jesus Christ took the fun out of the things we used to love. People might – gasp – think we were trying to be fundamentalist fuddy-duddies! They might think we weren’t cool!

Our worst fear these days is that someone might think we’re not “relevant”! But Jesus fear is that we’ll be so relevant we’ll go to Hell. So he offers this warning.

Following Jesus IS  about no longer hanging on to our lives lived on our terms. Following Jesus means we stop trying to hold on to people, places, things and even relationships that keep us from serving Christ the Lord.   And it means that even the good things in our lives that begin to approach the status of “Lord” in our lives have to be put back in their proper place.

That’s because of Jesus’ love for us – you see, He tells us – if we are ashamed of Him now, and our lives are continually shaped and our actions governed by the fear that someone will call us a “Jesus Freak”… then when the Son of Man does return as the full inheritor of all the nations, He will be ashamed of us and we will be as doomed as those who shake their fist in His face this day.

That’s why we must ever fear the presence of the “Satan in Me.” The Satan in Me will delight in telling Jesus what to do while never listening to what Jesus requires US to do. The Satan in Me will offer a good confession of faith while doing whatever he pleases… and whatever mocks what Jesus really wants us to do.

The Satan in Me will confess that Jesus is the Messiah, and then seek his own life instead of losing his life for Jesus Christ.

How are you dealing with the Satan in You?