Not Your Father’s Messiah

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflecting on the Word

By Rev. James A. Wallace, C.Ss.R.

“Who am I for you?” is a question we might ask another when a relationship  becomes more serious. We want those we love to know and value who we are,  just as we want to know and value them. A relationship deepens and grows from  such exchanges. 

At this mid-point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus asks those who have been with him  since the beginning of his ministry what they think of him. They have heard him  preaching and teaching; they have seen him casting out demons and curing those  with various ailments of body and spirit. They have even seen him raise a young  girl who had died. So they have been with him long enough to have formed an impression. 

Peter’s answer is not given the warm welcome in Mark’s Gospel that it gets  in Matthew’s, where Jesus responds by affirming that his heavenly Father has  revealed this to Peter. Here Jesus gives a warning “not to tell anyone about him,”  and then begins to teach him his own self-understanding. 

The notion of a messiah was so caught up with military might and kingly  authority that Jesus counters it with a different understanding, rooted in the  Servant Songs of Isaiah. (We heard one today as our first reading.) Jesus sees  himself as destined to be a suffering messiah, something incomprehensible to  his followers, as we shall see. But if they want to be his followers, they must take  up the cross in their own life and lose their life for Jesus’ sake. 

Consider/Discuss

  • What does Jesus mean when he tells Peter he is “thinking not as God  does but as human beings do”? 
  • How does losing my life for Jesus’ sake lead to saving it? 
  • Did God want Jesus to suffer? Does God want us to suffer? 

Responding to the Word

Jesus, you call us to know you as one who gave himself for us, so we might  be saved and have fullness of life. Help us to recognize where the cross is to  be found and teach us how to embrace it, so that we can continue your work of  redeeming the world. 

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