We find Jesus and his disciples in today’s Gospel reading not too long after John the Baptist’s disciples asked Jesus if he was really who he said he was, and John’s subsequent murder. This is also when Jesus teaches his disciples about the suffering that awaits him. Who knows what was going on in Jesus’ mind when he asks his disciples what the people are saying about him and who the disciples are saying he is? He must at least have been feeling fragile at this time.
It’s an interesting question, though, because by this time, according to Mark, the disciples have been with Jesus for some time and have seen him cure the sick and lame, cast out demons, feed literally thousands of people with very little food, and even restore life to a young girl. Little wonder, then, that Jesus asks what the crowds thought of all of this. And the disciples duly respond, saying that the crowds indeed recognize that Jesus is clearly a prophet, or a holy man of God, even possibly Elijah or the recently killed John the Baptist.
Then Jesus gets to what seems like his real question: asking the disciples themselves, directly, “But who do you say that I am?” And, again, the disciples come through. One disciple in particular, my hero Peter, declares that Jesus isn’t just a prophet, but is indeed the long-awaited Messiah.
I can only speculate as to how Peter must have felt in this moment. Was it a moment of sublime truth for himself? Almost like us saying “I love you” to someone for the first time and realizing that it is the truest thing we’ve ever said, and it is amazing?
However, never mind Peter’s great confession and his possible emotions, in typical Jesus fashion, he neither affirms nor congratulates him, but instead sternly orders the disciples not to tell anyone. Strange, but there you have it.
Could Jesus’ question perhaps also possibly be a need to be affirmed in his own identity, and to help him overcome his fear and insecurity of what lies ahead of him?
Or could the “Who do you say that I am?” at the same time be a “Who do you say you are?” As in “Get behind me, Satan!” If we only had to affirm Jesus’ identity, that would be one thing. However, answering the question of Jesus’ identity is also having to own our identity. And what does our understanding of Jesus say about our understanding of ourselves? But that’s a sermon for another day.
After all this, Jesus 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 be raised on the third day. He said all this quite plainly, but Peter’s disappointment at this is so great, that it drowns out Jesus’ final promise, “… and after three days rise again.”
This seems too much for Peter to deal with.
Peter, you see, wants and needs a strong God. He’s looking for a descendant of the mighty king David to come and overthrow Roman rule and restore Israel to its rightful place among the nations. Jesus has to be that person. After all, he’s already brought relief, comfort, healing, life, and love. So, what’s all this talk about suffering and death?
Peter wants a strong God, and who can blame him?
Are we any different? When the crushing weight of hardship bears down upon us, when the voices of despair drown out all others, when it’s one disappointment after another, don’t we also want a strong God to avenge our hurts, to right all wrongs, and to put us back on top of things?
However, it is precisely when we are down and out, when life’s setbacks and disappointments have conspired to make us feel like we’re nothing, that we wonder what a God of might, strength, and justice has to say to us, ordinary human beings, who often feel far closer to defeat than to victory?
And I think this is what God says in Jesus’ rebuke to Peter, by contrasting divine things and earthly ones. By our human reckoning, strength is everything, might makes right, and the one who dies with the most toys wins. But God employs a different set of values, and measures strength not in terms of might, but in terms of love; not by victory, but vulnerability; not in possessions, but in sacrifice; not by glory, but by the cross.
Jesus knows this; but Peter does not; at least not yet. Peter only gets it when, with his own mouth, he denies Jesus three times and then must watch Jesus get beaten and nailed to a cross, and die, all alone.
And maybe it is at this point also that Peter realizes that instead of getting the God he wants, he gets the God he needs? And it is here that Peter realizes the truth that mercy, grace, forgiveness, and love surpass our earthly understanding.
So, it will also be with us, as we recognize that the God we worship comes not for the victorious but for the vanquished and seeks out not the mighty but the downtrodden. Our God comes to feed the hungry, to heal the lame, to free the prisoners and to comfort the broken-heartened.
God comes for us.