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.”
 |
| Peter |
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.
Then Peter took him aside and began to urge him not to let
this happen. He, however, turned around, looked at his disciples, and
reprimanded Peter, saying to him, “Withdraw from me; now the adversary is
speaking through you! Your thinking is not divine but merely human in nature.”
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.”
First August Trinity
July 24, 2011
Mark 8:27 – Mark 9:1
In today’s reading we hear Christ’s mysterious words:
‘whoever is concerned with the salvation of his own soul will lose it.’
Strange— isn’t that what Christianity is all about? The saving of one’s soul?
There is a story of a man who awakens one night to the
presence of an angel writing in a book. The man asks, with humble courage, what
the angel is writing. The angel replies, ‘The names of those who love the
Lord’. Yet the man’s own name does not appear on the list. So he asks the angel
to write him down as one who loves his fellowmen. The next night the angel
returns, showing the names of those whom God has blessed, and the man’s name
shines at the top of the list.[1]
The Gospel, the Good News from the realm of the angels, is
that through Christ, we are all given the power and strength to love our fellow
human beings. For the salvation of our own souls is not the goal. It is the
result, a sort of unintended consequence of loving others. Our task is not the
salvation of our own soul; it is the salvation of the world, through love. For
Christ did not say, ‘save yourself’. Instead He has given us all a task. He
asks us ‘to love one another as I have loved you’ (John 13:34)
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