Not Your Father’s Messiah
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 50:5–9a / Psalm 116:9 / James 2:14–18 / Mark 8:27–35
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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.