Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s
Confession)
1st
August Trinity
And
Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the
Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshiped as a divine being). And on the way
there he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”
They said to him, “Some say
that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one
of the prophets.”
Then
he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’
Then
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
And Jesus warned them not to
tell anyone about him.
And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will
be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the
law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and
openly he told them this.
And he called the crowd
together, including his disciples and said to them, “Whoever would follow me
must practice self-denial and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever is
concerned about the salvation of his own soul will lose it; but whoever gives
his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, his soul will find power and
healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through
that he damages his soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness?
What then can a man give as ransom for his soul? In this present humanity,
which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my
words, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the shining
revelation of the Father among his holy angels.“
And
he said to them, “The truth I say to you, among those who are standing here there
are some who will not taste death before they behold the kingdom of God arising
in human beings, revealing itself in the power and magnificence of the spirit.”
1st August Trinity
July 28, 2013
Mark 8:27 – Mark 9:1
Sometimes things wear masks. The ugly bug in the garden
turns out to be a beneficial. The carpenter building your cabinets turns out to
have a Master’s in literature. If you can see beyond the surface, the world is
full of surprises.
Christ Jesus wore the mask of a poor, homeless itinerant
preacher and healer. It took a flash of moral intuition for Simon Peter to catch
a glimpse of what vastness lay behind the mask. He caught the flash of the
Messiah, the Son of God.
The world itself wears a mask, much of it pasted on by
our own way of perceiving it and thinking about it. And so Peter, although he
caught the greatness of Christ, rejects Christ’s prediction of what he will do
and suffer. It is too radically
different from Peter’s expectations. And
so he pastes a mask of human reasonableness onto the vastness of a truth he
cannot comprehend.
Sometimes we too have a flash of insight. It can be
fearsome. What seems to matter to Christ is that we not set ourselves in
opposition to what must be; that we surrender ourselves to what He means to
have happen in the world, no matter how frightening or repulsive or puzzling
the mask may seem to us. We need to be able to say in the words of Adam
Bittleston:
May the events that seek me
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With a quiet mind
Through the Father’s ground of
peace
On which we walk.
May the people who seek me
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With an understanding heart
Through the Christ’s stream of
love
In which we live.
May the spirits who seek me
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With a clear soul
Through the healing Spirit’s
light
By which we see.[1]
www.thechristiancommunity.org
[1] Adam Bittleston, Meditative
Prayers for Today. Click here to purchase
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