TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2024)
Readings:
Isaiah 50:4-9
Psalms 116:1-6, 8-9
James 2:14-18
Mark 8:27-35
The literal centrality of today’s gospel is no accident. Chapter eight of Mark’s gospel is dead center in this evangelist’s work, and the placement of this story bestows on it an importance that other gospel stories don’t share. It is not as though it is completely unique, for Jesus will predict His Passion twice more before the gospel ends. The unrewarded boldness of the chief apostle Peter is meant to speak words that the reader of the gospel, if they are paying close attention, is able to utter. Our cycle of readings have shown us a Jesus who behaves like and does the work of the prophets – the blind see, the deaf hear, and the word of God is preached to them.
Perhaps it was the environs of Caesarea Philippi which caused Jesus to wonder what people were thinking and saying. Twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea Philippi was a Roman town, and it would not have been unusual for Jesus to be wondering what the town was thinking about Him. The question is broadly asked – “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples answered broadly – “some say John the Baptist” (because you teach the importance of repentance), “others say Elijah” (because you perform miracles), “still others say one of the prophets” (because you make prophetic proclamations like the the prophets of old). Somehow Jesus’s realized that what he cared about most was what His intimate followers were thinking. After all, they had seen His works, heard His words, and were with Him twenty-four seven. They must have an opinion!
With characteristic boldness Peter answers for the group: “You are the Christ,” You are the Messiah. Jesus warns them not to tell anyone about Him (Mark’s “messianic secret”), no doubt worried about the confusion that might engender, a confusion soon to be manifested by Peter.
Jesus continues taking to the apostles, and proclaims hat will be His first Passion prediction in the gospel of Mark, telling the apostles that the “Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.” The last phrase must have been so incomprehensible that Peter only focused on the difficult part. What kind of person would Peter be if he allowed Jesus, the Messiah, to be murdered? Peter’s understanding of Messiahship was what most Jews of the day had – the Messiah would be a warrior king, who would free them from the oppression of the Romans and give the Jews the kind of autonomy they desired. Bold as he is, Peter decided to “rebuke” Jesus. Jesus wastes no time responding: “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Ouch! Peter went from being the star pupil, to a loser that Jesus calls “Satan” (SNL’s Church lady loved that line!).
The full extent of Messiahship will not be fully grasped to well after the events in Jerusalem, yet still would Jesus tell them and model what His notion of Messiahship entails: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Even after the crucifixion, and the numerous times that Jesus tried to spell it all out, the apostles just didn’t get it. The prophet’s (like Isaiah in the first reading) envisioned a ‘suffering servant,’ one who does what God expects of, including embracing the suffering part. There is no avoiding the suffering that comes with following the Lord Jesus. Just as returning to His Father required Jesus to embrace the cross and all that went with it, so too we will be called upon to embrace suffering, confident that it will bring us to where the Christ, the Messiah, lives at the right hand of the Father.
parishionersforjustice.com 