Gospel for Sunday, September 15: Mark 8:27-35
XXIV Sunday Year B
And on the way he questioned his disciples, saying, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist, others then Elijah, and others one of the prophets.” 29 But he replied, “And who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he sternly commanded them not to speak of him to anyone.
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man had to suffer greatly, and be reproved by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, then be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 Jesus was making this speech openly. Then Peter took him aside, and began to rebuke him. 33 But he turned around and looking at the disciples, rebuked Peter and said to him, “Far be it from me, Satan! For you do not think according to God, but according to men.”
34 Summoning the crowd together with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s sake will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he then loses his own soul? 37 And what could a man possibly give in exchange for his own soul? 38 Whoever will be ashamed of me and my words before this adulterous and sinful generation, even the Son of Man will be ashamed of him, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”Mk 8:27-35
Dear sisters and brothers of Misericordia, I am Carlo Miglietta, a doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it). Also today I share with you a short thought meditation on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
JESUS THE SORROWFUL AND GLORIOUS MESSIAH: 8:27-10:52
Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah (8:27-30)
(see Mt 16:13-20; Lk 9:13-21)
Mark tries to make us see more clearly the Mystery of Christ. The second part of Mark’s Gospel opens here: we are in the middle: even literally we are in the eighth chapter, while there are sixteen chapters.
If in the first part we entered of the mystery of the coming Kingdom, now we enter the mystery of the Son of Man.
Notice: three times Jesus announces the necessity of his Passion, and three times he manifests his Glory.
The disciple will also be invited to take up his cross and get behind the Lord, because following Christ is following the Cross. We follow the Crucified One. Our sign is not a Superman or a superhero. In the age of superheroes we still worship a Man who was tortured and hung on a cross. Our sign is the sign of God Crucified.
v. 27: – Caesarea Philippi, on the northern borders of Palestine, is a city rebuilt by Herod Philip about 3 B.C., who had a temple erected here in honor of Caesar Augustus. These were territories where there was another deity: the Caesar Augustus, who was considered a god, but Jesus clearly proclaims his own deity.
Three times the divinity of Christ is proclaimed, “You are the Messiah, the Christ.” At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, “This is the beginning of the gospel, the glad messaggjo of Jesus, who is the Christ and the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Finally, seeing that Jesus died, the centurion says, “This man was indeed the Son of God!” (Mk 15:39). And here, at the heart of the Gospel, the divinity of Christ is proclaimed, “You are the Messiah, the Christ” (Mk 8:29).
We are in the city that bears the name of Caesar, in the city of an emperor who has himself proclaimed god and lord. The first martyrs will be such precisely because they refuse to worship the emperor. The emperor demanded that they worship God. Peter here states that the
Messiah is Jesus Christ, that poor carpenter from Nazareth is the Christ, the Messiah Son of God. The word “Christs” translates the Hebrew “Mashá,” the eschatological Anointed One, that is, that personage long awaited by all Israel, in whom God would bring to fulfillment his promises.
There is a parallel here with Mark 6:14 ff: there there was an aborted confession for lack of Faith, here we come to a full profession by divine revelation. “Who do you say that I am?”: ”You are the Christ.”
We too today are powerfully called to proclaim to the world that Jesus Christ is Lord. We too, in a world that is full of idols, which are power, sex, violence, careers, the great of this world, music and sports stars, must forcefully proclaim that the Crucified Nazarene is the only God, creator of heaven and earth and Judge of Salvation. We must have the courage to clearly proclaim this: we must have the boldness, in this world full of idols, to destroy idols, with the strength of the ancient Prophets, and proclaim that only God is what matters.
These are not just “official” proclamations: it is a matter of making everyone in our daily lives understand that what matters is not career, not success, not wealth, but God. In our lifestyle, don’t look for comforts, riches, satisfactions: remember that what matters is instead the love of God, the love among us.
It is in our daily lives that we choose either God or idols, hours of television and a few minutes of prayer, as the Bishops often remind us, who often call for “television” fasting.
We often have idols that we do not realize we have. They are those things to which we bow, habits, things that fill our minds, but which are not God, are not God!
Three announcements of the Passion, teachings and glory:
A) 8,31-9,29:
1. First announcement:
Jesus announces his death and resurrection: Peter’s rebuke (8:31-33)
At the moment when the great Messianic proclamation was finally made, which in the other Gospels even finds praise from Christ (in Mt 16:17: “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for you have not discovered this truth by human strength, but it has been revealed to you by my Father who is in heaven’”), immediately Jesus begins to explain what it means that he is the Christ, he is the Messiah. To be the Messiah means to suffer “pollas,” that is, many things, to be repudiated and then rejected. Jesus, who had asked for the messianic secret (v. 30) about what it meant to be Messiah, now instead speaks openly (v. 32).
But this revelation of a God who must suffer many things and be repudiated is scandalous to Peter, who stands beside Jesus to give him the advice, “Be smart, why do you show up a loser? Present yourself brilliant, powerful, winning, get busy. You, on the other hand, preach a cross to us: but what figure do you make in this world?” Peter says this with affection, Peter says it in good faith, “But Lord, we lose disciples, we lose young people, we lose old people: be more diplomatic: be smart!”
Peter stands beside Jesus to give him advice: this standing beside has a special significance because the disciple is the one who walks behind the master. Peter, on the other hand, wants to be Jesus’ counselor, and the Bible is terrible with those who stand as God’s counselors, as in Isaiah 40:12-17:
“12 Whoever has measured with the hollow of his hand the waters of the sea
And reckoned the extent of the heavens with the palm?
Who has measured with the bushel the dust of the earth,
weighed with the stadera the mountains
And the hills with the scales?
13 Who directed the spirit of the Lord
And as his counselor gave him suggestions?
14 To whom did he seek counsel, that he might instruct him
And teach him the path of righteousness
And taught him in science
And revealed to him the way of prudence?
15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
they count as the dust on the scales;
behold, islands weigh as much as a speck of dust.
16 Lebanon would not be enough to kindle the stake,
nor its beasts for the burnt offering.
17 All nations are as nothing before him,
as nothing and vanity are held by him.”
The Prophets lash out against those who would give counsel to God:
Is 55:8-9: “8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
your ways are not my ways – oracle of the Lord.
9 As much as heaven overhangs the earth,
so much do my ways overpower your ways,
my thoughts overpower your thoughts.”
Then Jesus puts Peter back in his place, and says to him, “Opìso mou!”, “Follow me, go after me, go back, don’t put yourself at par, go back and be a disciple.” We need to understand these verses well because they have a special richness. We, useless servants, cannot give advice to God. Certainly for the Jewish world it was inconceivable that the Messiah would be excommunicated by the religious power: he could at most be excommunicated by the political power. So here is the resulting scandal, but Jesus says clearly in verse 38, “Whoever will be ashamed of me and my words, I will be ashamed of him.” Jesus scandalizes us, Jesus surprises us. The design, the logic of God sometimes scandalizes us and we say, “Lord, you must not do that!” Jesus says to us, “Go back to your place, follow me, put behind, obey, I am the one who knows where you are going.”
Jesus calls Peter Satan: “Vade retro, Satan.” Satan means obstacle, stumbling block: “You hinder the way of salvation.” Satan is the one who hinders our path to the Lord. Jesus was not afraid to say first Pope was Satan, other than “Holiness.” He called him Satan: in Mark there is first and foremost the proclamation of truth.
2. Teaching
(see Mt 16:24-28; Lk 9:23-27; Jn 12:25)
As we said before, there are three announcements of the Passion, three teachings, three manifestations of glory. What are the teachings after the first Passion announcement?
1. The disciple does not measure himself by what he has. The follower of Christ is measured by what he loses, by what he gives.
2. The main distinction is knowing oneself or knowing Jesus. The disciple is the one who disowns, denies himself, but knows Jesus. The Hebrew verb is “jadah”: it is the verb of knowledge, meaning love, it is carnal knowledge. The disciple is the one who must disown self, that is, lose self to love God. The early Church has before it examples in which the Master is denied in order to save the disciple’s life, beginning with Peter (“I do not know that man,” the famous betrayal at Pilate’s house: Mk 14:71), and ending with those who during persecutions saved their lives by denying the Lord. So these sentences resounded most vividly, burned in Mark’s church, which was subjected to the persecution of Nero, the great persecution of Rome. We too must follow this discourse today, today where we have a mentality where what matters is personal fulfillment: who does not aspire to fully fulfill himself? Instead, Jesus tells us that we must disown our own fulfillment, and seek his fulfillment, that of his kingdom: only if we have believed in the fulfillment of his kingdom will we also be able to fulfill ourselves.
Christ’s law is to deny ourselves: do we tell our children, our grandchildren, to deny themselves, the kids in the oratory, the children we catechize? No, instead we do everything to fulfill them: then the gym, swimming, dancing, tennis, the English class at three years old, the music class… Then maybe they don’t go to church and pray.
We don’t teach them that true happiness is giving of oneself, is spending oneself for others, and we don’t teach that there is also pain in life: the important thing is to fulfill oneself. The logic of Christ is something else: it is to disown oneself in order to know Jesus. To disown oneself is to know the logic of the “Servant” and to know nothing but God’s will. The mission of the Head is the same as that of the disciple; in communion with Christ, we too take up our cross, in a life of service, giving, and Faith even in trial and suffering.
The rabbis had interpreted the figure of the “Servant of God” in Isaiah 53 in a collective sense, that is, referring to a people called to bear the sins of the world, to suffer, to die, to be sacrificed: this is Israel’s mission. Christ alone dies, but his mystical body, which is the church, mysteriously dies for the world. Paul will say in 1 Cor. 1:24, “I am happy to suffer for you. By my sufferings I complete is what Christ suffers for the benefit of his body, that is, the church.” Paul does not mean that there is anything missing in an ontological sense for Christ’s sacrifice to be complete and perfect, but he does mean that we too in our sufferings participate in Christ’s sufferings: we are a body that suffers with the Head, mysteriously, we are also on the cross until the end of time, when this one sacrifice already made will also be realized within history and not only in a plan of Faith.
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.