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08.23.09

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

FOLLOW THE LEADER

PSALM 19; MARK 8:27-38

The Question

My Personal Experience

It was early spring in 1969

I was away at a Junior High retreat with the youth group from my church
That weekend was the event that changed my life
I was three months away from finishing eighth grade and six month away from starting my high school education
At the tender age of thirteen, I was already beginning to think about what I would do with the rest of my life
My interests were leading me in the direction of either pharmacy or meteorology as my chosen profession, but three days at church camp changed all that

As I sat through our closing worship service, something was stirring inside me, and I wasn’t sure what it was

As the service concluded, and the rest of the kids and counselors headed to the dining hall for lunch, I stayed behind to speak with Phil, our youth group leader
I don’t remember everything I said to him, but I do remember saying, “Phil, I think God is calling me to be a minister.”

Phil and I talked together and prayed together for nearly an hour, and when we were finished, I knew that my life would be different from that point on

I don’t remember anything that Phil said to me that day
I just remember that he was the one who helped me understand what I was feeling
He was the one who helped me hear God’s voice
He was the one that led me to know that it wasn’t some thing stirring inside me, it was some one
What I was feeling was nothing less than the Holy Spirit
Now, it was up to me to decide what to do with what I was experiencing

I grew up in the church in so many ways

We attended Sunday School and worship as a family
My mother taught Sunday School and both my parents were deacons
Later, I would become the first teenager ordained as a deacon in that congregation
My brothers, my sister and I attended Vacation Bible School, participated in children’s Christmas programs, sang in the children’s choir, and were active in youth group activities
I knew everything about God and Jesus that a thirteen-year-old boy could know

But therein lay the dilemma that caused the stirring inside me as that weekend retreat came to a close

Up to that point, everything I knew about God and Jesus was based upon the experiences of others
I had been told repeatedly that God loved me and that Jesus died to save me, but that was all second-hand experience
What happened that weekend was that I stopped hearing about God and started getting too know God
I stopped hearing about Jesus’ death to save sinners and his power to raise them to new life, and I experienced his death and resurrection for me

It was at that point that I woke up to the fact that God loves me as if there was no one else to love, and that Jesus died for me as if there was no one else to save

It was at that point, also, that I learned that I was important to God, and that God had a definite plan for my life
I could choose to accept God’s love and follow God’s plan or I could choose to live my life my own way
I chose God’s way

Answering the Question

As I look back on that event forty years ago, it was as if Jesus was standing in front of me asking me the same question he asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

Like Peter, I could give the correct answer, based upon what I had learned about Jesus
But also like Peter, I would not have known what it meant to call Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, without the aid of the Holy Spirit working within me

When Peter answered Jesus’ question, he was only rattling off what others had said about Jesus

Calling him “the Christ” was just another option in the list of names and titles people were giving to him
It would only be later, with the help of the Holy Spirit, after he experienced Jesus’ death and resurrection for himself, that he would know what it meant to call Jesus “the Christ”

What else I discovered that day was that I could not fully understand who I was as a person until I understood who Jesus was

Our human identity is directly tied into who Jesus is and how we respond to him
There is no real living without a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ

Reaching the Pivotal Point

The Fundamental Questions of Life

What does it mean to believe that Jesus is the Christ?

What difference does or should it make to be a Christian?
Can I be identified as a follower of the Son of Man?
These are fundamental questions we all must wrestle with, and these are the questions Jesus is posing for his disciples at this pivotal point in his life and ministry
At this point in Mark’s Gospel, the public ministry in Galilee is essentially finished; from this point onward the action is directed toward Jerusalem
The question of Jesus’ identity is here answered by Peter’s confession that he is the Christ, and immediately the theological focus shifts to what if means for Jesus to be the Christ and for his followers to be Christians

Even the geography of this scene indicates the pivotal nature of this event

Caesarea Philippi is located in the foothills of Mount Hermon
The view to the south stretches across Galilee to Jerusalem
In this text, Jesus invites his disciples to look back across the Galilean ministry and reflect on who he is, then to look ahead and understand that they are “on the way” to Jerusalem, to suffering, death, and resurrection
How they understand Jesus at this point will influence how they live the rest of their lives

Misunderstanding Jesus

That Peter, and the rest of the disciples, still don’t fully understand what it means to say that Jesus is the Christ is indicated by two significant details in the text

The first detail is in verse 30: “Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.”
This is a strange saying considering the fact that Jesus is to be the Savior of all and that Jesus calls people to believe in him, but there is good reason for Jesus to say this to his disciples
Deeply ingrained in the minds of the disciples, and in the entire nation of Israel, is the Hebrew concept of Messiah
That concept portrayed the Messiah as a mighty man of war, an earthly conqueror who would finally and completely defeat the powers of Israel’s oppressors and establish himself as an earthly king
This was not Jesus’ mission; this was not God’s concept of what the Messiah should be
God’s concept was much different, as we shall see in a moment
To avoid any misunderstanding between the Hebrew concept of Messiah and God’s concept of Messiah, Jesus commanded the disciples not to tell anyone about him

The second significant detail is the definition of Messiah that Jesus gives and Peter’s reaction to it—vs. 31-33

To be the Christ, the Messiah, means that Jesus must suffer greatly and die on a cross to defeat the powers of sin and death rather than simply to conquer the powers of human oppressors
To simply conquer human oppression would do nothing to remove the root cause of that oppression, which is human sin
As long as sin still had power in human life, human oppression would continue
To be the Christ, the Messiah, also meant that Jesus must take on the role of a servant rather than a king
A king is only concerned about self-interest, but a servant is concerned about the interests of others

Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ prediction of suffering and death shows how deep his misunderstanding of Jesus was

Peter begins to sharply rebuke Jesus because Jesus wasn’t living up to his expectations
To Peter’s rebuke, Jesus reacts with strong words” “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
With these words, Jesus puts Peter in his proper place—behind him—which is the appropriate place for any disciple to be
If we believe that Jesus is Lord and Christ, the proper place for us to be is behind him, following him and walking in his footsteps, rather than running out ahead of him doing our own thing and trying to get him to follow us

The Meaning of Discipleship

Moving on, Jesus defines what discipleship is all about

In his next words, he explains what living the Christian life involves—vs. 34-35
To believe that Jesus is the Christ, the one who came to be the servant of all, to suffer and die for all, and to be raised to new life so that all might be set free from sin and death, requires that those who follow him must live a life of sacrifice
The old person must die, and that old person is the ego—that part of us that is selfish and arrogant and rude, which causes us to think of ourselves ahead of others and has no place for God

We cannot faithfully follow Jesus and think of ourselves first because Jesus never put his own wants and desires ahead of the needs of others or the will of God

To believe that Jesus is the Christ, we must be willing to take up our cross and follow Jesus to crucifixion
To carry our cross isn’t simply to endure the hardships that life brings, it is to be willing to lay our life on the line, to suffer and die for the sake of the gospel and for others, just as Jesus willingly suffered and died for us
And we must do that boldly and joyfully, otherwise we will be ashamed to call ourselves Christian
If we are ashamed to let others know who we are and what we believe, Jesus will be ashamed of us when he comes again in glory

Facing the Turning Point

“Who do you say that I am?”

That is the crucial question of life we must answer again and again
That was the question I was confronted with forty years ago as I experienced the stirring of the Holy Spirit within me, and I have been confronted with that same question many times since as I struggled to discern the will of God
At each moment, when I was confronted with that question, I had to decide again if I believed that Jesus is who he says he is, and if I was willing to trust him and follow him

Jesus speaks that question to each of us, just as he spoke it to the disciples on that day so long ago

“Who do you say that I am?”
To know for certain who Jesus is helps us to better know who we are
How we answer that defines our meaning and purpose for living