This is the first movement in the turning point, the turning away from the early life of Jesus and toward his destiny. The turning away from safety and toward the danger of the cross. The turning away from home and toward Jerusalem.

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Jesus turns toward Jerusalem before his followers are ready
Proper 19B  |  Mark 8:27-38

Everything Changes

Everything changed.

We can all recall those moments in life when that is the best description of the day’s events. Everything changed. Tomorrow’s going to be different. We aren’t the same any more. So many of us felt that way on September 11th 14 years ago. The old us died and a new us was born.

We do this in all of these big moments in our lives. When we get big enough to leave the house alone, when we move out, when we marry or have kids or change careers. We call these moments turning points.

This story from the evangelist we call Mark is at its primary turning point. It is literally in the middle of the book. It is a great moment, full of potent energy and rich emotion. Here, Jesus is asking his disciples about who he is and here, Peter declares that he is the Christ, the Messiah.

Everything is about to change. Right now.

This is the first use of the word, Christ or Messiah since the opening line of the book. If we turn to the very first verse in Mark, we read that the evangelist kicks the book off with

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ

So we know that now Peter knows what we know: that Jesus isn’t just a rabbi and a prophet: a wonder-worker and a healer. He is actually the Messiah, the anointed, coming to change the world.

But this Messiah breaks the rules and starts talking about dying. And we all know that Peter thinks that isn’t supposed to be part of the deal. So he famously argues with Jesus about it.

This is the first movement in the turning point, the turning away from the early life of Jesus and toward his destiny. The turning away from safety and toward the danger of the cross. The turning away from home and toward Jerusalem.

Turning around

The story interestingly takes us to Caesarea Philippi, the furthest north point in Jesus’s ministry. It was a city, it’s gone now, that you can guess on its relationship to Jesus, right? It was annexed in 20 BCE by Herod the Great and became a Roman city, named after the Caesar. So it is a thoroughly Roman city. And its most famous characteristic is its monuments and cave drawings to Pan, the Greek god of wild and desolate places. Also of shepherds and flocks. He appears as half human and half goat. These are all really rich symbols for the disciples.

And it is here, at the farthest reaches that Jesus turns toward Jerusalem and first announces his death when they get there.

The beauty of this moment, this turning point is found in its richness, details that deftly nudge us where the evangelist wants us to go. And another way he does this is that the evangelist employs a literal turning in this story for us to see how this is really supposed to go.

Earlier Jesus has said that the disciples are to follow Jesus; they are to be behind him. Jesus turns to them and asks them “who am I?” Peter says “Messiah/Christ.” Great. So Jesus tells them what is going to happen. We’re all going down to Jerusalem and I’m going to die. That’s the plan. So Peter doesn’t simply rebuke Jesus, but he gets out of line and pulls Jesus away, literally leaving the posture Jesus has commanded. So when Jesus says “Get behind me, Satan!” he is being literal. It is not simply a rebuke of Peter, but a command, an invitation to take his proper place as a disciple. Peter’s pulling is away from GOD’s work and toward the adversary. Peter’s kind, supportive compulsion to help Jesus is a stumbling block to the mission.

Then they turn around and head toward Jerusalem.

Getting behind him, or sitting in front of him?

As disciples and followers of Jesus, who are trying to assume our proper position behind Jesus, that we might follow him and not obstruct his mission, let’s take a step back and see how this literal turning point works for them and for us.

The ministry of Jesus has been, through the first eight chapters, about revealing the Kingdom and doing Kingdom work. It has been full of teaching and preaching and feeding and healing and exorcising of demons. But it has also revealed that the work of a disciple is to participate in that same work, to do the very work of Jesus.

So the disciples are empowered to do the work and be similar engagers with the world as Jesus, as doing the exact same things that Jesus is doing. So they are teaching and preaching and feeding and healing and exorcising demons.

This is, after all, the rabbinic tradition. Following in the footsteps of your rabbi. Watching and imitating, doing the very same things they do when they do. To learn to be them.

Perhaps this is what frightens the disciples so much about Jesus’s revelation: that the Messiah is destined to die. Not only that he will be leaving them, but that the work will then be up to them.

What the coming chapters will reveal is that the disciples still don’t get the mission. They don’t believe that Rome will kill the Messiah. They don’t think Jesus really means it when he says it again in chapters 9 and 10 that he really is going to die. And I think they don’t believe him because they still don’t understand the nature of his ministry. That he is revealing the Kingdom: revealing it when he eats with outcasts and restores the possessed to society: any more than he will reveal the kingdom by dying on the cross.

Perhaps they want to believe in Jesus’s view of the kingdom, with its upside down economy. They want to see strength in weakness. They want to see wealth in poverty. They want to see righteousness in condemnation. They want to see hope in pain. They want to love their enemies and neighbors as themselves. They want to believe Jesus. And I think that they think they do believe him. The denials, the confusion, the fear, the fleeing will ultimately prove otherwise.

Getting it

It is often said that the evangelist of Mark casts the disciples in a really poor light because they are our way into the story. Perhaps it is no more true than here. Where we want to see strength in weakness, but man, we like fancy suits and utter confidence; a strong resume and the right credentials. We want to see wealth in poverty, as long as we can still afford our vacations and retirement is all paid for.

None of us is very good at this upside down economy. Most of us here benefit from the American economy: so different from Jesus’s.

So I certainly take some solace in the fact that the disciples weren’t any better. But they learned. They learned by going through it; by living it; by sharing their experience. They learned by grace and the Holy Spirit. And they learned that it wasn’t all going to come the way they thought it would.

It came through including people who weren’t allowed to participate in other communities. It came through tax-collectors-turned-apostles. It came through sharing resources and worshiping in new places, even in people’s homes. It came through telling and retelling the story and struggling to place their experience in the wider story.

And those first disciples learned. Over time, they began to see what it was that Jesus was showing them. They started to get it. After he was gone. After the cross. For then came the resurrection, the ascension, the pentecost. Then came their time.

And their disciples learned, too. So did their disciples. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

So there’s hope for us, isn’t there? I think so. I think there’s a lot to hope for. And I believe that we can get the upside down economy that Jesus is compelling us to embrace. But it doesn’t come through our brains: through understanding it: but through our hearts. It comes through experiencing it. We can only understand the love of Christ when we live it, when we receive it, give it, and share it.

And it comes when we make the decision in our brains and our hearts to take up our cross and follow Jesus. To turn around and take those steps. To make this our turning point. Turning toward Christ’s love. Toward Christ’s support. Toward Christ’s vision for our creation. Toward Christ’s love of strangers: the widows, the orphans, the sojourners, the sick, the imprisoned, the grieving, and the dead. Toward Christ’s love of the poor through comfort, the hungry through feeding them, the sojourner (the migrant and the refugee) through welcome and shelter, the broken through restoration. Toward Christ’s love of creation, that he didn’t condemn it all or exploit it to his ends, but that he would seek constant restoration and constant newness of life and constant new hope for all that GOD has willed into being.

We get Jesus the more we embrace him. All of him. All that he dreamed of and all he dreamed for us. When we embrace the order he creates and the love he brings. Not only in our brains, but incorporated in our lives. That’s our destination. That’s our Jerusalem. Together, we can turn our attention to a better, fuller faith. One that embraces all that our Messiah hopes for us.