One of my favorite things to do in my hometown of Paducah, KY is to go to the Market House Theatre. It’s been a number of years since I’ve been, but I always enjoyed the times I went. The old Market House became home to the theatre about fifty years ago, and since then, the plays they have and quality of their work has just gotten better and better.
For me, the Market House Theatre just seemed to always be a better option than just going to the movie theater. Getting to watch a play, sometimes performed by people I knew, was a much more memorable experience, and the quality was always good.
That theatre was also my introduction to plays altogether. The first time I ever experienced an intermission at any event was during a play at the theatre one night. And I remember thinking, “So, I guess I’m just supposed to stand here in the lobby until they’re ready to get started again” as we would wait between acts.
I also remember what would often happen as we returned from the intermission. Having watched the first act of the play, we would come back into the theatre, sit down, and have one of the actors (or a narrator) come onto the stage by himself and prepare us for the second act. Sometimes he would tell us things that had transpired between the actions that ended act one and what we were about to witness in act two. Sometimes he would provide for us a time indicator, noting that act two is now set years down the road. Sometimes he would tell us things we were going to witness in an upcoming scene that might be difficult to pick up on without being explicitly stated.
But one reason I’m happy for that education in theatre is because I think that’s what we see happening in Mark 8:27-9:13. In a sense, I think the best way to think of Mark 8:27 to the end of the book is as act 2 in the life and ministry of Jesus and his followers. If read quickly, the book might read as if things are just tracking on as normal, but that is not exactly the case. Things really take a transition in Mark 8:27 and following that show us that we’re in a second act, if you will.
In fact, I think the best way to think of the story in 8:22-26, where the blind man has his vision gradually restored, is in the role of that person that comes out after an intermission to prepare you for act two. It’s as if Mark was telling us in that story we looked at last week, “Okay, here’s what you’re about to witness in act 2. Up to this point, the disciples have been blind to who Jesus is. In fact, their blindness has been almost amazing, as they seem to miss again and again Jesus’ revelation about his identity. But at the start of the next act, you’re about to see that their blindness is slowly being removed. We’re going to see more interaction between Jesus and his disciples than we saw in the first act. He’s going to do a lot more dialoging and teaching with them. He’s even going to make them tell him who they think he is. But don’t be confused, their blindness will not be removed quickly. Every time some darkness clears up so that they can see better you’ll quickly see that they don’t see perfectly. They understand only in part, and their failure to understand completely is only going to be corrected in a gradual way. And that’s how we’re going to see act two.”
And it shouldn’t be surprising to us that act two of Mark’s gospel begins quite a bit like act one. You’ll remember in the opening chapter of Mark’s gospel we find Jesus being called the “Christ,” John the Baptist bearing witness to his identity, and even God the Father declaring that Jesus is his beloved Son. Well, the second part will start with Jesus being called the Christ, others bearing witness to his identity, and God the Father again declaring that Jesus is his beloved Son.
But there’s also a focus on Jesus’ mission as well. If the first part focused on his identity, the second part of Mark’s gospel will focus on his identity and his mission. Therefore, this morning, let us look at these verses and be reminded of who Jesus is, what was and is his mission, and what this means for us.
And the text begins with his identity, where we see in 8:27-30 that . . .
In Mark 8:27-30, Jesus begins to speak to his disciples alone. They’d witnessed much and been on what feels like a whirlwind of Jesus’ activity. So, Jesus stops and questions them. And he asks them two questions. First, he asks them, “Who do people say that I am?” The answers are what we might think. Some think he’s John the Baptist. We’ve already seen that Herod thought this. Others think he’s Elijah. This, too, is not surprising, since Elijah was simply carried off to heaven and in Malachi 4:5-6, the Lord had declared, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” And others think that he is one of the prophets – which could mean that he is literally one of the prophets who has returned or simply one who has come in the same Spirit as the prophets of old.
Again, none of these responses is surprising, and each might even have a certain logic to it. But, they are all wrong. So, Jesus asks the disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answers, no doubt representing the group as a whole, declaring, “You are the Christ.” And this ends with Jesus strictly charging them to tell no one. After all, there were all kinds of misconceptions about what the Christ (sometimes referred to as the Messiah) would be and do.
So, first of all, let’s note that Peter was right. Mark began his gospel by writing, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Here, Mark is not using “Christ” as a last name as we might think of it but more as a title. Jesus is the Christ. So, Peter is right in his confession.
But a second question we should ask is, “What does that mean?” or “How would Peter have understood what he was saying?” Well, Peter would have understood this term in light of the witness of the Old Testament Scriptures. You see, from the beginning, the Old Testament Scriptures prophesied of one whom the Lord would raise up who would be the redeemer, deliverer, and king of God’s people. We find this promise of raising up a deliverer as early as Genesis 3:15, where the Lord declares that he will bring one through the seed of the woman who would crush the head the serpent. As you continue through the Old Testament, you find that he would not only come through the woman but specifically through the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. We find that he will be a prophet like Moses who will speak God’s words (Deut. 18), a servant among Israel who would redeem Israel (Isa. 49), a son from David’s flesh who would reign as a great King over all the earth (2 Sam. 7 and Psalm 2), and who would rightly be called “Mighty God” (Isa. 9).
This one, the anointed deliverer, redeemer, savior, and King of God’s people is the one Peter would have in mind as he noted that Jesus is the Christ. And he was right. So, first, we are reminded again of Jesus’ identity. Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? Mark wants us to see again that he is the Christ – the God-man who came to redeem a people for God and serve as the everlasting King of all the earth. That glorious identity proclaimed by Peter in Mark 8:29 is exactly right. Peter has answered well.
However, Peter’s (and the other disciples’) vision is like the blind man who is able to see but can’t distinguish between people and trees because we see in Mark 8:31-33 that he still doesn’t understand the mission of the Christ. If we’ve seen Jesus’ identity in 8:27-30, in 31-33, we see Jesus’ mission. Namely, we see that . . .
Peter goes from highs to lows pretty quickly throughout the gospel account, but Mark 8:27-33 is probably the quickest. Having Jesus responded rightly to Jesus’ identity, he quickly shows that he doesn’t understand the mission of the Messiah. And we can understand why. I mean, consider the promises that the Savior to come would crush the head of the serpent, judge the enemies of God, reign as King over all the world, and restore God’s people. That sounds like a pretty triumphant mission.
I’ve noted it several times before, but perhaps the clearest example of the people’s expectations of the promised deliverer comes from the lips of Mary as she realizes that the Holy Spirit has conceived in his the Christ child. This woman, new with child, sings, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones . . . and the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1:51-53). I mean, it sounds like the hormones are in full swing, doesn’t it?
But what Mary is saying isn’t due to the hormonal changes in her makeup that come with pregnancy. She is singing of what the Lord will do in order to save his people. If he people need to be vindicated and delivered, then necessarily those who exalt themselves against the Lord and oppress God’s people will be brought down, scattered, and crushed under the Lord’s mighty arm. That’s what Mary rightly understands and sings about.
So, you would expect Jesus, having revealed and affirmed Peter’s response that he is the Christ, declare something in line with Mary’s prayer. Perhaps we would anticipate Jesus saying, “That’s right, Peter. Let’s go to Rome and let the Caesar know who is in charge. And on the way, I might strike a few wicked people dead just so that the message might reverberate throughout the land and people will come running to bow down and recognize me as God’s King, the Christ.”
But instead, Mark tells us, “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (8:31). And since we know that much of what Jesus taught has been hidden within parables, Mark tells us that Jesus said these things plainly. These things were plainly and clearly declared by Jesus to his disciples (8.32a).
But however plain Jesus declared it, it didn’t matter. Clearly to suffer, die, and be rejected by all of the leaders in the religious community couldn’t fit with being God’s Savior and King. If Peter had been right about Jesus being the Christ, then surely Jesus was mistaken in this. So, Peter takes him aside and rebukes him. Most likely Peter just wanted Jesus to recognize that there were many things the Messiah would do, but being rejected and suffering weren’t part of the role.
Jesus would have none of it, however, and he openly rebuked Peter in front of the other disciples, associating Peter’s mindset as aligned more with Satan than with God. Peter was thinking merely as man understands, not with the wisdom of God. That is, Peter did not understand that unless Jesus suffered, died, and rose God’s people could not be saved and that it was through dying that Jesus was going to destroy the one who holds the power of death.
Jesus’ mission, the mission of the promised Savior and King, was to suffer, die, and be raised on the third day. This is in fact the good news, the gospel. And the reason it was necessary is because our greatest enemy is not some Roman emperor or group that might oppose God’s people, our greatest enemy is our own sinfulness. And our greatest threat is God’s holy wrath on the day of judgment. See, what Peter didn’t understand is that we are the ones under God’s judgment. Peter needed God’s wrath against himself to be dealt with. And that’s what Jesus had come to do. In fact, Jesus died to remove God’s wrath from anyone and everyone who will repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus, who suffered, died, and was raised. This is the good news, the mission of the Messiah, and what we must proclaim to all men.
So, if Jesus is the Messiah and the Messiah’s mission was to suffer, die, and be raised, then we also need to recognize that . . .
There is a belief among some who profess Christ as their Lord that if we are believers in Christ, then all should go well with us. We should be healthy, wealthy, and wise. So, if you suffer, it’s out of place, and it’s always God’s will to take it away. If you are sick, it’s out of place, and it’s always God’s will to take it away. If you are poor, it’s out of place, and it’s always God’s will to take it away. And one line that some spout off when promoting this theology is they will say of themselves, “I’m a child of the King!”
And they’re right. God is King, and his Christ is our Lord. We can say that we are united by faith with one who is God’s King and Heir of all the earth. But it is equally true that if our King walked the path of suffering and death, then we who are united with him will walk the path of suffering and death as well. And any commitment to follow Christ as Lord must be a commitment to follow him on the road of suffering and death.
Jesus wants his disciples to know that his mission of suffering and death has major implications for any who would follow him. So he says in 8:34, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Now, lest we miss the brunt of this and reduce the language of the cross to some light load we must bear, we should remember that the cross was an instrument of cruel death. To say, “Well, we all bear our crosses,” when we get some nasal congestion would be as out of place as saying, “Well, we all bear our electric chairs” or “lethal injections.” That just doesn’t work. The cross meant death.
So, Jesus wants all of us to know that to follow the Messiah means that we must walk the road of being willing to suffer and die for him. And he gives us three reasons why:
This is what Jesus says in verse 35, as he notes, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.” Jesus is not much of a negotiator. If you ask if there’s another option, the answer is, “Sure, eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell.”
Those are our options. You follow Christ – which means you start down a path realizing that you will suffer and may very well die for the sake of Christ – or you try to keep your life now and face eternal death in hell.
Jesus says in verses 36-37, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Again, this is much like the first reason. Even if you found a way to gain the whole world as you refused to follow Christ, you would ultimately gain nothing on the day of judgment because you would lose your soul – facing eternal judgment. And finally . . .
Jesus says, “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (v. 38).
So, if you want none of Christ in this life, then he’ll want none of you when he stands in all his glory to judge the peoples of the earth.
That is, Jesus isn’t painting this as if we really wants us to think there’s a feasible alternative. We are all commanded to follow him. But, we need to realize that following him means suffering and death.
Simply put, when we profess Christ, we are not signing up for a life of ease. Christ now owns us, and he gets to employ our lives however he sees fit. He may call you to do something wildly unpopular with your family, something that will cost you all your earthly goods, or something that will cost you suffering and even your life. But that’s the road we sign up for when we follow a Messiah whose own mission was suffering and death. Instead of thinking all should be easy because we are children of the King, we should say, “This suffering shouldn’t be surprising; we’re united with one who suffered and died.”
Yet, suffering and death is not the end. In 9:1-8, we’re reminded that . . .
As Jesus tells his disciples about the path of suffering they must walk, he ends, saying in 9:1, “Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” That is, there are some standing here who are going to see the power and glory of God’s King and, thus, God’s kingdom.
Now, there has been much speculation over what this means, but I think the answer is right here in the text. I think we’re about to see the fulfillment of what Jesus promised in his transfiguration before Peter, James, and John, as witnessed in 9:2-8.
And I think the reason we’re supposed to understand this is because of two things: 1) Matthew and Luke both follow Jesus’ statement that parallel’s Jesus’ declaration in Mark 9:1 with the account of Jesus’ transfiguration. So, there’s a reason why all of them follow Jesus’ promise here to his disciples with the exact same event in Jesus’ life. And, 2) Mark gives us a time period at the beginning of verse 2. He says, “And after six days.” This is uncommon for Mark. He’ll only give such specific time markers at the end of the book when he talks about Jesus’ death. So why give it here? I think it’s because Mark wants us to know that Jesus attached a time to his promise and he fulfilled it six days later. In fact, Matthew and Luke both give time indicators in their telling of the transfiguration story as well. So, the transfiguration is the fulfillment of the promise of Mark 9:1.
What happens is that Jesus takes Peter, James, and John on top of a high mountain, and as they are there, Jesus is transfigured so that he becomes radiant and intensely white before them. Whiter than you could bleach something. And then two Old Testament major figures, Moses and Elijah, show up so that their presence bears witness to the greatness and glory of Jesus. It’s so astounding that Peter wants to honor them all and not leave, suggesting that they build three tents for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.
But soon it becomes clear that Moses and Elijah aren’t on the same plane as Jesus. They’re simply there to bear witness. This is made plain as God the Father declares from heaven, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (9:7). And as Peter, James, and John look around, no one else is there but Jesus.
What in the world is this about? Well, if it’s a fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in Mark 9:1, this is a demonstration of the power and glory of Christ’s reign. That is, if the Christ’s mission is going to be suffering and death, don’t be deceived, it will result in his reigning in glory and power as King. And the transfiguration is simply a foretaste of that.
So, the call to follow the Christ who suffered and dead in union with him means that we walk on a road of suffering and death as well. We are not called to an easy life. However, it also means that we’re united with one who was raised from the dead, who reigns at God’s right hand, and whose glorious reign will one day be evident to all. So it’s okay to suffer and even die in service to Christ, for we will one day reign with our glorious King. The glory of the resurrection screams to us – “Give your life for him. Spend it even to death in service to him. For we will be raised one day and reign with him in glory.”
Finally, we’re reminded that . . .
As they come down from the mountain, Jesus tells Peter, James, and John to tell no one about what they’d seen. If these misunderstand what Jesus’ mission is, then surely others will as well. In fact, he tells then to keep it quiet until he is raised from the dead.
But they don’t understand what he means. They are still struggling with the thought of a glorious Christ actually dying. So, they begin questioning what this talk of resurrection means. And if it means simply the resurrection of all people in the end, then it leads them to a question. “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” (9:11).
You see, the reason this was taught was because of Malachi 4:5-6 that we read earlier. Elijah was going to come before God brought about final judgment. So, Jesus’ answer is that they are right. But he says more. He tells them that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased. That is, Elijah had been a type of the one to come, and that promised was fulfilled in John the Baptist. But John had been executed.
What this means then for us is that we are in the last days. If Elijah had to first come and then God would bring his salvation and judgment, then we are wrong to sit back and think that we can live as if the days will go on without end. No. We don’t know when Christ will return to judge the earth, but Jesus wants us to live as if it could be close.
So, let us then ask ourselves these questions: How will we respond to the reminder (or realization) that Jesus is God’s promised Savior and King? How will we live in light of the call to take up our cross and follow the one who suffered and died? What will we will be willing to give up and sacrifice in light of the fact that we will be raised with our glorious King one day? And why would we wait in answering these questions when we know we are in the last days?” Let us then declare our response in faith to God’s call to us today through his Word as we come to the table. Amen.