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
[ses’uh-ree’uh fi-lip’i] (in the north of the land at the source of the
Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshipped as a divine being). And on the way
there he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”
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.
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.”
July 26,
2009
Sometimes an awareness dawns on us in a flash. We may have
known someone a long time, when suddenly we realize something very basic,
perhaps even sterling, about their character.
1st August Trinity
Mark 8: 27 – Mark 9:1
Sometimes an awareness dawns on us in a flash. We may have
known someone a long time, when suddenly we realize something very basic,
perhaps even sterling, about their character.
Peter has just such a flash about Jesus. He had known Him
for a while; He even loved Him. But suddenly he realizes that this is not just
a man, a great friend. Peter realizes that this is the Christ, the Son of God
sent to redeem the people. He does not, however, for the moment, understand the
how of Christ’s redeeming, for it would be so radical as to be
unthinkable.
Today it is also possible for us to have a flash of
awareness of Christ. In study we may come to realize the enormity of what
Christ Jesus has done for the whole world. Or we may have a flash of the awareness
of His presence, of being strengthened in an hour of need or despair. Or we may
see the warm shining of His acceptance and love coming toward us through the
eyes of another human being.
Such moments have a delicate tenderness that can soon be
swamped, covered over in the everyday. We may forget them, or even explain them
away. But when, after death, we look back on the inside of our lives, we will
recognize these experiences as the defining ones. We will see them as the
moments that influenced the course of our own destiny. So, in the words of the
poet:
Awake awhile.
Rest all your elaborate plans and
tactics
For Knowing Him,
For they are all just frozen spring
buds
Far,
So far from Summer's Divine Gold.
Awake, my dear.
Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out into the vast fields of
Light
And let it breathe.[1]
www.thechristiancommunity.org
[1] Hafiz, “Awake Awhile”, in I Heard
God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 73.
