Peter’s Confession about Jesus

Mark 8: 27-35

Now Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him. He began to teach them 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. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.

Discussion Questions: 

1. “Who do you say that I am?” How has your response to the question of who Jesus is, changed as your faith has deepened? How would you answer that question today?
2.  Have you ever been tempted to avoid or deny your own suffering? Have you ever tempted someone you love to do that?
3. Thinking as humans, do we fashion God to our image? How do you avoid projecting your personal dreams, problems, or fears onto God for resolution, and calling that faith? h what Jesus was most concerned about? “a life of trust in God and service of others”
4. For many, Christianity is about praying for God’s protection, safety, and comfort, and bracing for impact against suffering that might come our way. How do you stay in touch with the things Jesus was most concerned about? “a life of trust in God, and service to others”?
5. How does denial of self, take form in your life?
   
   

Biblical Context

Mark 8: 27-35
Mary McGlone CSJ

According to many scholars, this is the turning point in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus had been teaching in Galilee, now he turns toward Jerusalem and begins to focus on teaching his closest disciples about what it means for him to be the Christ, God’s anointed one.

Last Sunday, we considered the need to have our ears opened in order to hear Christ’s message. This Sunday, the scene opens with Jesus asking the disciples what they have heard about him. They respond with people’s opinions.

Some say he’s John the Baptist. Both John and Jesus were popular preachers who gathered followers and were a threat to powerful civil and religious leaders. Yet, their messages were quite distinct. As Jesus admitted, John was known for fasting while he was famous for feasting. Herod’s fear that Jesus was John returned from the dead shows how much power John had over the popular imagination.

Elijah, the other popular guess, was the prophet who disappeared in a fiery chariot and was expected to return at the end of time (2 Kings 2:1-12). People who identified Jesus with Elijah were putting him in the category of the prophets. They were guessing and maybe even hoping that he might be the one to usher in the end of the world. Thinking of Jesus as Elijah indicated that they thought he was sent by God and faithful to the tradition of Israel.

It seems that there was popular talk and plenty of confusion about Jesus. The disciples’ answer about what people said was the same answer Herod came up with after he had John put to death (Mark 6:14-16). People thought something unusual was happening among them and their varied explanations showed that they were paying attention and wondering, even hoping that something might come of it all. At the same time, their answers remained speculative. Nobody who said those things had to make any commitment; they could remain in the safe agnostic territory of “perhaps” and “we’ll see.”

At this point in Jesus’ mission, idle speculation was worthless. After letting them talk about what they had heard, Jesus terminated the opinion poll and put them on the spot: “But you! You! Who do you say that I am?” That was the question of their lives. Why were they on the road with him? What were they seeking? How far were they willing to go?
Peter’s answer was complete, and Jesus would immediately expose it as completely mistaken. Like a deaf man whose speech was muddled Peter proclaimed, “You are the Christ.” In reply, Jesus warned him not to talk about that to anyone.

Mark then says, “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer.” That was hardly what the crowds and his disciples were expecting from a messiah. It was a contradiction in terms. Jesus might as well have offered them dry water or cooling fires. How could the hero-savior, the king of heaven, the ruler of the earth, suffer and die?
Rise after three days? Everyone knew that “three days” was code for “in God’s good time.” That meant we have no clue when it will happen, but we continue to hope. This was a story none of them would have ever written, a play they might not have tried out for had they understood the plot.

Unable to believe that Jesus meant what he was saying, Peter pulled him aside to try to talk some sense into him. Jesus, standing with Peter and looking at the disciples, replied: “Tempter! I am the leader here. Follow me!” He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Jesus then addressed everyone around and put a clear choice before them. In effect he told them: “Either you try to save yourselves and end up with nothing but yourselves, or you give all that you are to this Gospel message, and you will learn what salvation means.”

John’s parallel to this moment of decision comes when Jesus invites his followers to partake in his body and blood, thereby inviting them to participate in his total self-giving. In John’s Gospel, Peter responds by saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life” (6:68). In Mark, Peter makes no reply; he and the others simply continue to walk with Jesus.

At this stage of the Gospel, Peter and the disciples are like the deaf man whose ears Jesus opened. Peter, speaking and acting on behalf of the disciples, communicated two important things. First, he professed faith in Jesus. Then, when Jesus told him his faith was distorted, he remained to learn more.

The journey to Jerusalem would be long and hard, and even when they reached the climax of the cross, the disciples hadn’t comprehended Jesus’ message. But they had the love and faithfulness to remain on the road with him, and that was all that was necessary.

Thinking as God Thinks

Reflection
Br. John R. Barker

Moments after a high point of his apostolic career—his affirmation that Jesus is the Messiah—Peter finds himself rebuked by that same Messiah. Given Israel’s expectations of what the Christ would accomplish, Peter is not able to accept that Jesus will be killed, much less by the religious authorities. But as Jesus points out to Peter and the other disciples, he has failed to understand the ways of God and instead continues to interpret events according to human criteria and standards.

The inability or reluctance to think as God thinks goes back to the beginning of the human race. Our ancestors in the Garden of Eden succumbed to the temptation to decide for themselves what is “good and evil,” to set up human ways of thinking as the measure of things. They didn’t fully understand why they couldn’t eat from the tree, so with some prompting, they decided that God was untrustworthy (Gen 3:1-7). Their incapacity to comprehend God led them to question God’s justice and God’s love. The ability to trust and obey God, when we cannot see as God sees, is what we call faith, and the struggle of faith is the central drama of the Bible.

Job’s understanding of the world and of God was put to the test when he began to suffer. His friends made sense of his pain by assuring him that he had “earned” it by offending God in some way, but Job knew he had done nothing wrong. Finally, he cried out: “Let the Almighty answer me! Let my accuser write out his indictment!” (Job 31:35). The Almighty did answer: “Who is this who darkens counsel with words of ignorance ?… I will question you, and you tell me the answers!” (38:2, 3). The ensuing divine speech makes it clear that Job lacked even close to the full picture of reality. The human mind is incapable of comprehending all of reality; only God has that breadth and depth of knowledge and wisdom. Job had to learn that human beings are not always able to see as God sees, and therefore they can’t always think as God thinks.

On the other hand, God takes great pains to teach us those divine ways that we can understand. The law and the prophets were given to Israel to teach the ways of God. Jesus came not only to teach us to think like God but – most importantly! – by his grace to make it possible to act like God. As Paul told the Corinthians, the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to “have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).

So, no, usually we don’t know what God is up to, even when we think we do. Peter had an idea of how God ought to operate, and Jesus set him straight. At the same time, Jesus came to teach us to follow the ways of God that we can understand, especially the way of sacrificial love, as incomprehensible as that may be at first. Through good will and perseverance, Christians can be transformed by grace to think more like God and less like sinful, limited humans. That’s when the kingdom comes.

Reflection from Give Us This Day: Br. John R. Barker

John R. Barker, OFM, is a member of the Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He has a doctorate in Scripture from Boston College and, besides writing for pastoral and academic publications, offers workshops and retreats on Scripture, the Catholic faith, and Franciscan spirituality.