Sermon 17th September 2006
Peter: right and wrong
One of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, continues our study of the gospel of Mark. Today's reading is from Mark 8, verses 27-38
A brand new Vicar arrived at a new church. Unfortunately, almost as soon as he arrived, several old members of the congregation died. Consequently in four weeks he did eight funerals. He did not have time to prepare his Sunday Sermons. So he used the sermon from the Sunday before - 3 more times. The PCC went to the Bishop complaining that the new Vicar had used the same sermon 4 times in a row. The Bishop asked what the sermon was about. The PCC couldn't remember; they scratched their heads and ummed and aaghed, but they really couldn't remember. The Bishop said, "Let him use it one more time."
I was tempted to follow that Vicar’s example, because this is the second time I’ve preached on this passage this year, but I decided against trying to get away with it! With most sermons, one of the main difficulties is trying to decide what to leave out; it’s usually possible to preach several different sermons from the same passage.
The story told in today’s reading from Mark, Peter’s great confession, was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. It became clear from that moment onwards that Jesus was treading the road of the Cross and teaching his disciples what his calling was to be – suffering.
The key verse here is verse 31, “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” But would the disciples really understand what Jesus meant?
A verse a bit earlier in chapter 8 hints they would probably miss the point. In verse 21, Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand?” The context there was about bread and the disciples’ complete inability to understand the spiritual points that Jesus had been making; they just didn’t understand. They kept on missing point, and so our Lord again and again had to explain to them what was going on. With the benefit of nearly 2,000 years of hindsight it’s easy to be critical of the disciples, to wonder how they could have missed the point so often, but we need to ask ourselves – Do we sometimes miss the point? Do we sometimes fail to recognise who Jesus is? It is very easy to mistake Christ’s identity.
So Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” And the disciples reported the general reaction, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." This tells us a good deal about the way that Jesus was perceived by the people. Not ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, not a comfortable, cosy friend; no, they saw him as one of the wild prophets who had stood up and spoken God’s word fearlessly against wicked and oppressive kings. Jesus was acting as a prophet; not simply one who foretold the future, but one who was God’s mouthpiece against wickedness and injustice in high places.
Now at that time many Jews believed that the arrival of God’s chosen one was imminent, the Messiah who would rescue the people from foreign oppression. And as Jesus went around teaching and healing people, perhaps the disciples were beginning to think that Jesus was something more than a prophet, perhaps he was the chosen one. And then came the critical question, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter responded with the wonderful answer that we are given here, “You are the Christ.” (In Hebrew the Messiah.)
Now Matthew’s Gospel gives a fuller account of these events, and I’m going to follow the precedent that Adrian set last Sunday and also cross-refer to Matthew’s account. After Peter gave his answer, Jesus congratulated him for what he had said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.”
Now, there has been theological disagreement over what Jesus meant when he said, “(O)n this rock I will build my church.” Some argue that Peter’s confession of faith was the rock on which Peter would build his church, but most commentators now agree that Peter himself was the rock on which Jesus said he would build his church. What an amazing compliment for Peter – to be told that he would be the rock upon which Jesus would build the church. It is easy to get Jesus’ identity wrong, but Peter had got it very, very right! But in a moment, we shall see how he went on to get things very, very wrong. Even the disciples, who had been travelling around with him and seen at first hand what he had been doing, struggled to grasp his real identity.
Now after Peter had come out with his declaration, Jesus told them not to tell anyone. Why did Jesus do this; what is the reason for what has sometimes been called the Messianic secret? Jesus knew that the disciples needed to be educated into what Messiahship meant before they could let the announcement go out, “Here’s the Messiah!”
Remember how on Palm Sunday the people in Jerusalem got it wrong. They thought, “Here’s the liberator, marching in to overthrow the Romans.” It’s very easy to mistake Christ’s identity. The disciples had to learn the nature of Christ’s Messiahship.
If Jesus asked us the question, “Who do you think that I am?” how would we answer. A lot of people say that he was a good man, perhaps even a prophet of God, but the Son of God, the Messiah, that’s going a bit too far. A lot of people say they try to live by his teaching, but believing in the Resurrection is going over the top. There’s a famous passage in a book by C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity that responds to this type of thinking. I’ve quoted it before, but several years ago, and I think it’s well worth repeating, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
“Who do you say that I am?” It’s very easy to mistake Jesus’ identity. It’s also easy to mistake his mission, to get wrong what Jesus came to do. So, in verse 31 Jesus began to teach them what his mission was about; that he must suffer, be rejected and killed and then rise again from the dead. As soon as he had confirmed to the disciples that he was the Messiah, he had to explain to them what his Messiahship meant. To the Jews of Jesus’ time the person of the coming Messiah gathered around him a whole aura of triumphalistic nationalism and associations that went way beyond the OT prophesies. The Messiah was a mighty military figure who was going to liberate them politically. He would fulfil all the people’s dreams, the dreams of a people who had been dominated by the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman Empires in turn. He would restore the chosen people of God to their rightful place in the Sun. That the Messiah would be very different came as a shock, even to his disciples who must already have worked out that Jesus was no figure of revolutionary violence. But to learn that the Messiah was going to suffer was too much. It was certainly too much for Peter who took Jesus aside and rebuked him. Peter wasn’t going to allow the Messiah to suffer, but Peter had got it very wrong. And Jesus in turn rebuked Peter in very strong terms; “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
It was a tremendous rebuff for Peter. One moment he was Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus would build his church, the next moment Jesus was calling him Satan. Perhaps Jesus was remembering an earlier time in his life, when Satan tempted him in the wilderness. “Throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the Temple,” the voice of the tempter said, “and win the world through signs and wonders. You can avoid the pain of the Cross. All Jerusalem will be amazed.” Jerusalem did figure in Jesus’ plans: Jesus had set his face towards Jerusalem, but he made it plain enough what Jerusalem would mean; he wasn’t going to allow Peter, no matter how well-intentioned he was, to sidetrack him from the way of the Cross. To preach the message of Christ without the Cross would be a bit like writing a biography of Christopher Columbus without mentioning America, or making a documentary on Winston Churchill without referring to the 2nd World War. The Cross is absolutely at the centre. It has to be. Jesus must suffer. Yes, of course, the resurrection is there too; without the resurrection the Cross would be a tragedy, but Jesus said that he would defeat death and after 3 days rise again. But the Cross had to come first.
Do we sometimes forget the centrality of the Cross? From time to time Christians do slip away from the Cross. For example, prosperity teaching has sometimes gained adherents in many parts of the world. A lot of this teaching is based on taking OT verses out of context such as “the LORD your God will make you most prosperous”; these verses do appear in the OT, but they need to be balanced with the rest of the Bible. Such teaching ignores the fact that many godly OT figures suffered, in particular Job, and also it forgets the Cross. For there on the Cross, we see Jesus stripped of everything. There was no prosperity there.
But I suspect that prosperity teaching isn’t the type of trap that we’re likely to fall into here. We’re more likely to think that it’s a trap that other Christians, particularly Christians from the USA, are more likely to fall into. But I don’t think we can afford to be complacent. Our Christianity can quite easily become a comfortable Christianity. OK, we don’t necessarily believe that God will bless us materially, but our Christianity may have become undemanding and comfortable. We too need to ask ourselves whether we are in danger of losing sight of the Cross. Perhaps, like Peter, we do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.
“Who do you say that I am?” Have we got Jesus’ identity wrong? Jesus is not merely a good man, a man who set us a good example to follow. Jesus is the Son of God; God the Father sent him to suffer for our sakes, to die on the Cross and to rise again from the dead. And even if we already accept that, are we sometimes tempted to choose the easy way, rather than the way of the Cross. Has our Christianity become too comfortable?
Let us pray. Father, you sent Jesus to be the Messiah, to die for us and to rise again. Help us to recognise who he truly is, and to be willing to follow him wherever he leads us.
One of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, continues our study of the gospel of Mark. Today's reading is from Mark 8, verses 27-38
A brand new Vicar arrived at a new church. Unfortunately, almost as soon as he arrived, several old members of the congregation died. Consequently in four weeks he did eight funerals. He did not have time to prepare his Sunday Sermons. So he used the sermon from the Sunday before - 3 more times. The PCC went to the Bishop complaining that the new Vicar had used the same sermon 4 times in a row. The Bishop asked what the sermon was about. The PCC couldn't remember; they scratched their heads and ummed and aaghed, but they really couldn't remember. The Bishop said, "Let him use it one more time."
I was tempted to follow that Vicar’s example, because this is the second time I’ve preached on this passage this year, but I decided against trying to get away with it! With most sermons, one of the main difficulties is trying to decide what to leave out; it’s usually possible to preach several different sermons from the same passage.
The story told in today’s reading from Mark, Peter’s great confession, was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. It became clear from that moment onwards that Jesus was treading the road of the Cross and teaching his disciples what his calling was to be – suffering.
The key verse here is verse 31, “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” But would the disciples really understand what Jesus meant?
A verse a bit earlier in chapter 8 hints they would probably miss the point. In verse 21, Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand?” The context there was about bread and the disciples’ complete inability to understand the spiritual points that Jesus had been making; they just didn’t understand. They kept on missing point, and so our Lord again and again had to explain to them what was going on. With the benefit of nearly 2,000 years of hindsight it’s easy to be critical of the disciples, to wonder how they could have missed the point so often, but we need to ask ourselves – Do we sometimes miss the point? Do we sometimes fail to recognise who Jesus is? It is very easy to mistake Christ’s identity.
So Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” And the disciples reported the general reaction, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." This tells us a good deal about the way that Jesus was perceived by the people. Not ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, not a comfortable, cosy friend; no, they saw him as one of the wild prophets who had stood up and spoken God’s word fearlessly against wicked and oppressive kings. Jesus was acting as a prophet; not simply one who foretold the future, but one who was God’s mouthpiece against wickedness and injustice in high places.
Now at that time many Jews believed that the arrival of God’s chosen one was imminent, the Messiah who would rescue the people from foreign oppression. And as Jesus went around teaching and healing people, perhaps the disciples were beginning to think that Jesus was something more than a prophet, perhaps he was the chosen one. And then came the critical question, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter responded with the wonderful answer that we are given here, “You are the Christ.” (In Hebrew the Messiah.)
Now Matthew’s Gospel gives a fuller account of these events, and I’m going to follow the precedent that Adrian set last Sunday and also cross-refer to Matthew’s account. After Peter gave his answer, Jesus congratulated him for what he had said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.”
Now, there has been theological disagreement over what Jesus meant when he said, “(O)n this rock I will build my church.” Some argue that Peter’s confession of faith was the rock on which Peter would build his church, but most commentators now agree that Peter himself was the rock on which Jesus said he would build his church. What an amazing compliment for Peter – to be told that he would be the rock upon which Jesus would build the church. It is easy to get Jesus’ identity wrong, but Peter had got it very, very right! But in a moment, we shall see how he went on to get things very, very wrong. Even the disciples, who had been travelling around with him and seen at first hand what he had been doing, struggled to grasp his real identity.
Now after Peter had come out with his declaration, Jesus told them not to tell anyone. Why did Jesus do this; what is the reason for what has sometimes been called the Messianic secret? Jesus knew that the disciples needed to be educated into what Messiahship meant before they could let the announcement go out, “Here’s the Messiah!”
Remember how on Palm Sunday the people in Jerusalem got it wrong. They thought, “Here’s the liberator, marching in to overthrow the Romans.” It’s very easy to mistake Christ’s identity. The disciples had to learn the nature of Christ’s Messiahship.
If Jesus asked us the question, “Who do you think that I am?” how would we answer. A lot of people say that he was a good man, perhaps even a prophet of God, but the Son of God, the Messiah, that’s going a bit too far. A lot of people say they try to live by his teaching, but believing in the Resurrection is going over the top. There’s a famous passage in a book by C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity that responds to this type of thinking. I’ve quoted it before, but several years ago, and I think it’s well worth repeating, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
“Who do you say that I am?” It’s very easy to mistake Jesus’ identity. It’s also easy to mistake his mission, to get wrong what Jesus came to do. So, in verse 31 Jesus began to teach them what his mission was about; that he must suffer, be rejected and killed and then rise again from the dead. As soon as he had confirmed to the disciples that he was the Messiah, he had to explain to them what his Messiahship meant. To the Jews of Jesus’ time the person of the coming Messiah gathered around him a whole aura of triumphalistic nationalism and associations that went way beyond the OT prophesies. The Messiah was a mighty military figure who was going to liberate them politically. He would fulfil all the people’s dreams, the dreams of a people who had been dominated by the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman Empires in turn. He would restore the chosen people of God to their rightful place in the Sun. That the Messiah would be very different came as a shock, even to his disciples who must already have worked out that Jesus was no figure of revolutionary violence. But to learn that the Messiah was going to suffer was too much. It was certainly too much for Peter who took Jesus aside and rebuked him. Peter wasn’t going to allow the Messiah to suffer, but Peter had got it very wrong. And Jesus in turn rebuked Peter in very strong terms; “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
It was a tremendous rebuff for Peter. One moment he was Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus would build his church, the next moment Jesus was calling him Satan. Perhaps Jesus was remembering an earlier time in his life, when Satan tempted him in the wilderness. “Throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the Temple,” the voice of the tempter said, “and win the world through signs and wonders. You can avoid the pain of the Cross. All Jerusalem will be amazed.” Jerusalem did figure in Jesus’ plans: Jesus had set his face towards Jerusalem, but he made it plain enough what Jerusalem would mean; he wasn’t going to allow Peter, no matter how well-intentioned he was, to sidetrack him from the way of the Cross. To preach the message of Christ without the Cross would be a bit like writing a biography of Christopher Columbus without mentioning America, or making a documentary on Winston Churchill without referring to the 2nd World War. The Cross is absolutely at the centre. It has to be. Jesus must suffer. Yes, of course, the resurrection is there too; without the resurrection the Cross would be a tragedy, but Jesus said that he would defeat death and after 3 days rise again. But the Cross had to come first.
Do we sometimes forget the centrality of the Cross? From time to time Christians do slip away from the Cross. For example, prosperity teaching has sometimes gained adherents in many parts of the world. A lot of this teaching is based on taking OT verses out of context such as “the LORD your God will make you most prosperous”; these verses do appear in the OT, but they need to be balanced with the rest of the Bible. Such teaching ignores the fact that many godly OT figures suffered, in particular Job, and also it forgets the Cross. For there on the Cross, we see Jesus stripped of everything. There was no prosperity there.
But I suspect that prosperity teaching isn’t the type of trap that we’re likely to fall into here. We’re more likely to think that it’s a trap that other Christians, particularly Christians from the USA, are more likely to fall into. But I don’t think we can afford to be complacent. Our Christianity can quite easily become a comfortable Christianity. OK, we don’t necessarily believe that God will bless us materially, but our Christianity may have become undemanding and comfortable. We too need to ask ourselves whether we are in danger of losing sight of the Cross. Perhaps, like Peter, we do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.
“Who do you say that I am?” Have we got Jesus’ identity wrong? Jesus is not merely a good man, a man who set us a good example to follow. Jesus is the Son of God; God the Father sent him to suffer for our sakes, to die on the Cross and to rise again from the dead. And even if we already accept that, are we sometimes tempted to choose the easy way, rather than the way of the Cross. Has our Christianity become too comfortable?
Let us pray. Father, you sent Jesus to be the Messiah, to die for us and to rise again. Help us to recognise who he truly is, and to be willing to follow him wherever he leads us.
posted by Parish Administrator at 6:41 pm
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