St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
Year B ▪ February 28, 2021
Mark 8:31-38
It is described as the “big transition.” It is a major life change, defined by loss and grief, and is wrapped in mixed emotions. It can be a traumatic experience, causing great fear and anxiety for those who experience it. It is physically, emotionally and spiritually taxing. What is this big transition you might wonder. You might be surprised to know that the big transition to which I refer is the process of moving.
If you have ever had to pack up your worldly possessions, while parting with some; revisit moments in time captured in pictures of loved ones no longer with us; saying goodbye to neighbors and your neighborhood; all while anticipating the new life ahead—a life that can only be fully realized by going through that “big transition.” Moving offers a good metaphor for the mourning that many may experience when our attachments to the places, people and things of this temporal world, cease to be.
Jesus said, “…Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it,” (vv. 34-35). In order to begin to make sense of Jesus’ words, perhaps we might look at how we define life. One might describe the average human life in terms of the sensory experience—that which can only be experienced in this temporal world through the human body. But that would only describe a part of life as our embodied spirits know it.
The word life, in Greek, is Zoe. Zoe is the life force of the soul, the source of the fullness of life. In John’s gospel, all things came into being through the word who was in the beginning with God…what has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of the people” (Jn 1:1-4). With this perspective the message of Jesus becomes clearer. “…Those who want to save their earthly life (which is always moving toward death) will lose it, but those who choose to set their minds on the divine things of life with Christ—the divine life that is Christ will save it.
It is with this perspective that we look back to the top of our gospel passage today in which Jesus revealed his impending path of suffering, rejection by the religious authorities, death and resurrection after three days. And, Peter, who had just declared that Jesus was the Messiah only three verses prior (8:29), took Jesus aside and rebuked him for what he was saying.
A strong reprimand generally brings to mind parent-child relationships or boss and subordinate relationships. Reading this, I have flashbacks of my childhood of being snatched up by my mother in a store for bad behavior, and her stern whispering of a few words in my ear which would immediately stop that bad behavior. A reactionary Peter not only forgot his place in his relationship with his teacher, Jesus, for “…Servants are not greater than their master…” (Jn 13:16), but his rebuke dismissed God’s divine will for Jesus’ life.
Jesus then responded with his own rebuke. But what happens before Jesus’ rebuke begs our attention. Recall that Peter took Jesus aside to rebuke him. But, Jesus turned and looked at his disciples. In Jesus’ turning, his back would have presumably been turned toward Peter when he said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” (v. 33). Think about that small, yet significant, detail of Jesus’ physically turning away from the source of the rebuke of God’s will for his life.
While Mark’s gospel does not elaborate on the ways in which Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days; Jesus’ rebuke, which called out, not Peter, but Satan by name, might indicate for us that Jesus was well aware of the many ways in which Satan would manifest in order to divert his focus away from God’s divine plan for universal salvation—even in the midst of Jesus’ own trusted inner circle.
The directive to “get behind me” was the foundational statement Jesus used to define, what it meant to be his disciple. Jesus said to his disciples and the crowd around him, “If any want to become my followers, let them: Deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (v.34).
The first of this three-part formula is the denial of the sinful nature of the human self. The seven deadly sins of pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth (all of which are being explored in our Lenten series) create an environment within the human soul that turns the individual away from God and toward egocentricity—away from divine things and toward human things. The second, of the three-part formula, is the taking up of one’s cross. The taking up of one’s cross is a decision to willingly participate in the death of the human inclination to sin. There are parts of ourselves that necessarily need to die, to make space for the kingdom of God within. It is an act of trusting that God will transform not only your cross, but you—the cross bearer—so that you may fulfill His plans for your life’s purpose.
Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 fictional novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, takes the reader on a journey with a Russian judge, Ivan Ilyich. When Ivan is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he clings to his dying body, and longs for meaningful moments with his family, which only increases his existential suffering, even as he is tortured by his physical pain. As he feels his physical body transitioning, Ivan describes his transition from life to death as his desperate clinging to the inside of a black sack, devoid of light. When he inevitably loses his grip, and falls through the hole in the bottom of the sack, Ivan falls not into more darkness, which he feared, but into Light. Ivan let go of the darkness in the black sack and found light out of the darkness.
Clinging to this temporary human experience, which can never escape the human condition of suffering, is to deny oneself the gift of the fullness of life that came into being through Jesus Christ. Jesus’ disciple, Peter, had not grasped that his rebuke of Jesus was rooted in his own human desire to have his teacher stay with him; he was attached to the human presence of Jesus, and the thought of losing him caused Peter great angst. He was setting his mind on human things and not divine things.
You and I have the advantage of standing on the other side of the cross, and living in the hope of the risen Christ. From our point of view, we know that it is only because of Jesus’ obedience to God unto death, that eternal life with God is ours now, and eternal life with God is ours beyond this human experience.
Yet, there are so many do not yet know Christ, and unwittingly walk in darkness, and whose souls are assaulted by the destruction and death of this sin-sick world. Jesus is hope, and without the hope of life abundant, which Jesus came to give us, those apart from Christ place their hope in temporary, human things that are passing away, and remain in darkness. But darkness is not where God’s beloved have been created to be. With hopeful anticipation, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” In the meantime, we have kingdom-building work to do.
As Christ’s hope bearers and Light bringers in this world, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring others to belief in Christ so that they, too, may look forward to the life beyond that which the limited human senses can perceive, and the life beyond this limited human experience.
May it be so.
