Commentary on Isaiah 50:5-9; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35

All of Mark’s Gospel is describing a learning experience, first for the disciples of Jesus, but also for the reader and hearer of any time. Knowing who Jesus is and what following him means is something that the disciples did not tumble to all at once. It was a painful journey for them.

Last Sunday we saw the story of the healing of “a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech”. It is the beginning of a central learning section in this Gospel which finds its partial climax in today’s reading. The story is a kind of parable of how we gradually learn to listen to and understand the meaning of Christ’s life and message, and how we then learn how to share our experience effectively with others. It is not enough to have heard the message; it has also to be shared and communicated with others.

Today’s passage is immediately preceded by another healing story, this time that of a man who was blind (Mark 8:22-26). The interesting thing about this story is that his blindness was healed in stages. That is exactly what was happening to the disciples’ understanding, and we see it clearly illustrated in today’s story.

Who do people say I am?
Today’s encounter of Jesus with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi (a meeting place of Jewish and Greek cultures) represents a high point in Mark’s Gospel and in their relationship with Jesus. It is a question of Jesus’ identity. He asks them:

Who do people say that I am?

They give various answers. The general opinion is that Jesus is certainly some kind of prophet sent by God—perhaps John the Baptist resurrected, or Elijah, who was expected to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah—or some other prophet.

Jesus presses:

But who do you say that I am?

Peter, speaking in the name of them all, says:

You are the Messiah.

That is, you are the Christ, the long-awaited liberator king of Israel. ‘Messiah’ or ‘Christ’ (Greek, Christos) means the ‘anointed One’. Kings (remember David?) were inaugurated by an anointing. To call Jesus the ‘anointed One’ is to say that he is King.

An exciting moment
It must truly have been an exciting moment for the disciples. Their Master was no mere rabbi; he was the Messiah, the King of Israel! And they were part of his inner circle, his close friends and companions. They were now courtiers. Wow! Would they be moving into a palace? Would they be getting important jobs or have power, influence, lots of money and beautiful clothes? It was mind-boggling! What a future was unfolding for these uneducated men!

And then—totally unexpected—comes the shock, a large bucket of very cold water. Because Jesus begins to tell them what is going to happen to him, the Messiah. He will be rejected by the religious and civic leaders of his own people, he will undergo terrible sufferings, he will suffer a horrible and shameful death by execution on a cross, and at the end will rise on the third day (whatever that meant).

An unacceptable scenario
Peter, again clearly representing the thoughts of all his companions:

…took him aside and began to rebuke him.

It was unthinkable that the Messiah should meet a fate like this. It was totally against all reason that the Messiah should suffer at the hands of his own people. On the contrary, he was to be victorious over all Israel’s outside enemies. What Jesus was saying just did not make any sense. This was not part of the scenario which had been built up for the Hebrew people over such a long period of expectation. And what was going to happen to them? All this nonsense had to be nipped in the bud.

The reaction of Jesus feels almost savage:

Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.

Peter—the Rock—is now seen as a stumbling block. Jesus could be tempted to think like Peter. It would make a much more pleasant future than the one he had just described. But he knew the way he was being called to follow.

It is clear that the disciples’ (and our) learning experience was not over. They had reached the critical stage of knowing who Jesus was—the Messiah. But now they had to discover—very painfully—just what kind of Messiah he was going to be. They won’t know this, and they will not see its terrible and compelling beauty until after the resurrection.

The rest of Mark’s Gospel deals with this topic in which we are intended to be the real learners (remember that most of those disciples were dead and gone by the time Mark’s Gospel appeared).

More to come
But Jesus is still not finished with them! Addressing his words not only to them but to everybody, Jesus continues:

If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

Jesus’ Way has also to be our way. So much of the time we try to straddle the fences: be ‘good’ Catholics and have the good things that everyone else wants as well. We don’t want crosses. We even think that one of the purposes of prayer is to ask Jesus to take away the nasty things and make life smooth all the way.

But Jesus is urging us to let go. To ‘save our life’, we cannot cling to ‘things’ want security in them. Our happiness, we need to learn, is not in having or grabbing, but in sharing what we have. It is in giving, not in getting. It is in ‘letting go and letting God’, as they say.

Who are those with real faith?
James today in the Second Reading speaks about those people who have “faith”. That is, they claim to be believers in Christ and the Gospel, but nothing of that appears in their lives. They pray piously, are seen at Mass every Sunday, they are experts in doctrine and orthodox teaching, but they do very little to help others. They show very little involvement in the apostolic and social life of the Church. Above all, they show little interest in working with others to tackle the problems of poverty, disease, loneliness and alienation, exploitation and injustice. Often they are social climbers and snobs both inside and outside the Church.

St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) used to say, “Love until it hurts.” That is what carrying the cross means. She constantly lived the example. She reached out incessantly to the poorest she could find, the abandoned sick and dying. She had strong views on morality, but she never judged those she helped whether they were women who had abortions or men who became ill through promiscuous sex. She was famous, but the trappings of fame meant nothing to her. Although she did use her fame to twist the arms of the rich and separate them from their money—it was not for herself, but for those who needed it most.

James tells us that:

…faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Love that does not cost anything is not love.