This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. Clearly this passage points to suffering and death as being at the heart of God’s plan of redemption and salvation. The passage does not explain why this is the plan, it just insists that this is the way it will be. It sets up a dissonance to our way of thinking. Clearly the accounts of Jesus to this point in the Gospel reveal his cosmic powers over nature, death, illness, demons and more. How can he then permit the enemies who wish to destroy him ultimately succeed? St. Paul’s insistence that the gospel of the cross makes a mockery of our human concepts of success. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. As Jesus often does, the private conversation gives way to summoning the crowd and the offer of a larger, summary teaching.

34 He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, 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 that of the gospel will save it.

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This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. In yesterday’s post after Peter had proclaimed Jesus as “the Messiah,” ever the teacher, Jesus continues in that role to describe what it is that the Messiah must do. Verse 31 marks a new beginning. Prior to this the emphasis has been on Jesus’ authority and power as he cast out demons, healed diseases, commanded the waves, and more. Now the stress will be on his own suffering and death – and the disciples’ responsibility to follow. The lesson is brief and to the point: He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. In its own way, this one verse plays out the remainder of Mark’s gospel. There are four things needed for Jesus to be obedient to his Father’s desire that humanity be redeemed: Jesus must: Continue reading →

This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. As the storyline reaches Caesarea Philippi, we arrive at the first major climax of Mark’s Gospel – the second being the Passion and Crucifixion. Until now, Mark has been revealing who Jesus is in the mighty deeds he has done. Along with this revelation, Mark has also reported Jesus’ reluctance to have people believe in him only because of those wondrous deeds. This Caesarea Philippi passage comes to the heart of the matter. Jesus now says explicitly that his way is a way of suffering. The way of the Messiah is the way of the cross: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (8:34) – that is perhaps getting ahead of ourselves. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. In yesterday’s post we provided a summary of the events/encounters in Mark chapter 6 and 7. All this leads to Caesarea Philippi and one of the pivotal moments in the gospel of Mark. The description of the coming periscope is oddly stated in the Greek, “into the villages of Caesarea Philippi.” Previously Mark had described it as a region (5:1, 17; 7:24, 31; 8:10). In any case, the region was twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee. The area was built up by Herod Philip to serve as the capital of his tetrarchy. It is perhaps noteworthy that the region is two days’ journey north. Its northern location likely served to separate Jesus and his disciples from the crowds that attended his every move earlier in the ministry. Continue reading →