(for the Second Sunday in Lent, March 1, 2015)
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ (Mark 8:31-38, NRSV).
Our passage follows immediately on from Peter’s declaration of Jesus as the ‘Messiah’.
His is, however, a short-lived triumph. Jesus’ immediate change of teaching-content is stark: suffering, rejection, death are coming. The addition of a rising after three days seems to go unheard. At the very least it is not understood.
So Peter takes it on to re-direct Jesus’ message.
It does not go well. Jesus’ words: ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ They must have cut deeply. So unexpected, extreme, defensive.
In fact, they look quite unlike the Jesus we imagine. A harsh, public ‘rebuke’.
Jesus is, however, the one most likely to recognise Satan’s tempting tactics. Perhaps those forty days are remembered all too well. The hunger. The thirst. The temptation.
Perhaps the echo of the path Satan once suggested rings loudly. Peter is, essentially, recommending a way forward that does not involve death. Has Jesus heard this before? Is he still profoundly tempted by it? Who wouldn’t want to find another way?
But this cross-way is God’s-way. So much so that Jesus is immediately depicted asking this of anyone who would follow after him:
‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
This way is not only the way forward for Jesus. It is also the way forward for us. Some will be ‘ashamed’. Some will look for another way.
Others may listen.
Even then it may be almost impossible to hear: take up your cross and follow me.