Sermon: "Who is Your Jesus?"

1st in the "The Way of the Cross" series.
Delivered March 1, 2009 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Mark 8:27-9:1

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Who is Jesus? Was he a wise teacher like Buddha or Mohammed, a religious radical, a guy who just tried to do good things and whose life has gotten all blown out of proportion by His followers, or is Jesus really something quite different than that - someone quite more than that?

People have been speculating about the identity of Jesus from the very start of his ministry, maybe even earlier, from his birth itself. Now, some people might think it is a waste of time to wrestle with the identity of Jesus. Some of the people that we just saw might have felt that way. It's not worth their time.

But Jesus himself felt like getting it straight in our minds: who he really is, is a life and death priority. In fact, in just a few minutes we are going to go into a text where Jesus himself is the one who brings up the issue of his identity. We are going to see that in the Gospel of Mark.

But before we do that, I want to talk a little bit about the Gospel of Mark. Mark was a young follower of Jesus. He might have been one step farther away, but he was definitely a friend of the very original disciples and apostles. Most scholars agree that even if Mark is the one who is writing this down, that behind Mark we very likely have the testimony of Peter, the apostle.

We can see this a number of ways. Just one way that it comes out is that in the other gospels, Peter is praised a number of times by Jesus, as well as rebuked, but in the Gospel of Mark we only see the rebuke. So there is a chance that in this gospel, we are actually seeing Jesus through Peter's eyes.

It was written in a very tough time for Christians. The Gospel of Mark was written in the 60s and 70s AD. It was a time when Christians were facing death in the Roman coliseum. They were being torn apart for the entertainment of Roman citizens. And they were doing this was because they were considered atheists. They were considered traitors.

The Gospel of Mark, at least in part, is written to answer the questions that had to be on the hearts of these early Christians as they were facing their own deaths. Two questions would have loomed out for them. Was Jesus really the Messiah, and, does my suffering make sense?

During Lent, we are going to look at this Gospel, the second half of the Gospel of Mark. Lent is a special time when the Church prepares spiritually for Easter. And we're going to be using this time for a new sermon series called "The Way of The Cross." And week after week, we will be looking at the second half of the book of Mark and to reflect on what it means for us to be disciples of Jesus as well.

Where we're starting today is the second half, is the end of the first half of the Gospel of Mark. In other words, we are going to study the hinge-point of the Gospel of Mark. Where we begin is the ending point of the first half, and where we end today, will be the opening words of the second half of the Gospel of Mark.

Now, it is not like Mark put into the gospel a chapter divider saying, "Here I'm ending the first half; here I'm starting the second half," but there are some things here that very clearly show us that there is a first and second half. There are some stark differences between the start and the end of the Gospel of Mark.

For example, the first half of the book tells us about the first three years of Jesus' ministry. A long period of time involved, and it is filled with action. In fact, you'll notice in your Bibles, depending on your translation, in the first half of the Gospel of Mark it"ll say "and immediately," "and immediately," "and immediately," or in other versions, "at once," "at once," "at once."

There is a sense of haste. There is this flurry of activity, and Jesus is primarily in action, not teaching so much. So we see Him healing. We see Him feeding people. We see Him casting out demons.

Another characteristic of this first half is that it's all over Israel. They are moving place to place. In fact, the passage we're going to be looking at today has him in a place called Caesarea Philippi, which is probably the farthest point of Jesus' ministry. Finally, when we look into this first half of the gospel, Jesus is often, if not primarily, dealing with the crowds around him.

And then we come to chapter 8, the midpoint of the book, and things begin to change. Suddenly the pace begins to crawl, whereas the first part is years, the second half of the book is measured in weeks. Jesus is no longer primarily in action; more and more he begins to teach.

In this second half, instead of Jesus going all over the countryside, he is on his way to Jerusalem, and unlike the first half of the book, increasingly we see him speaking to the core people who surround him.

Let's take a look at Mark, chapter 8, and we will begin at verse 27. Let's now read Mark, chapter 8, verses 27 and 28, and let's pray.

Lord, as we go into your Word, help us to hear and help us to understand. Work in us by your Holy Spirit. For we ask it in Jesus name, Amen.

Mark, chapter 8 beginning at verse 27:

"Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, 'Who do people say I am?' They replied, 'Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.' 'But what about you?' he asked. 'Who do you say I am?' Peter answered, 'You are the Christ.' Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him."

We find Jesus and His disciples in Caesarea Philippi. It is a Gentile place named after Caesar Augustus. It's a place that represented ethnic and religious diversity. There are all kinds of historic things there for various religions. For example, in Old Testament time this area was the center of Baal worship. For the Greeks, it was a place that they called Paneas, because they believed their god Pan was born in one of the nearby caverns. In Jesus' time, there was a marble temple to Caesar standing there.

And so with all the religious imagery surrounding him, Jesus asked the question, "Who do people say that I am?" Just like we did on the video, he is asking the question "What's the word on the street about who I am?"

Now the disciples seem almost eager to answer at this point. It seems like they've just been waiting, you know, to talk about this issue and so they stand forward, and they say, John the Baptist. That's one of the people. John the Baptist had just been killed by Herod. And so there are some people that are thinking, you know, good chance John the Baptist has been resurrected and that's who this Jesus guy is.

But other people thought he might be Elijah. For years, the Jewish people have been waiting for the prophet Elijah to come back, because Elijah was the one who was going to prepare the way for the Messiah, for the King, for the Christ.

Maybe the disciples at this point are hoping that Jesus will take the lead and say, "Well, let me tell you guys who I really am." But he doesn't do that. Take a look at what Jesus does, verse 29: "But what about you, who do you say that I am?" In the midst of all this diversity of opinions, after all the time you spent with me, who do you think that I am? This is where Jesus was heading the whole time. This is what's really important to him, is to surface, "What do you think?"

Now Peter steps forward. Always the first to answer whether he knows what he is saying or not. This time I think he does, to a certain extent, know what he is saying. "You are the Christ." The Messiah, the Anointed One, the one who has been anointed as king, and not only king of Israel, but the anointed king that will be king of the world. That's what Peter is saying when he says, "You are the Christ."

Right answer. Peter has been listening. Peter has been watching. This is a high point for Peter, and it ends the first half of the book. Peter declares the identity of Jesus. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ that Israel has been waiting for.

So the first half of the book has a theme, "Who am I?" And the right answer for this is that, "You are the Christ." And implicit in this dialog that Jesus has with his disciples, the reason he is asking a question at the end, rather than simply telling them, is because he's asking them, "Do you believe?" That's what's going on here.

Now, Peter is the one who declares the truth, "You are the Christ, I believe it." But Peter didn't have very long in his moment of glory. Within minutes, Peter crashes and burns. And it comes at a moment of startling honesty on Jesus' part, because what Jesus says next lays it absolutely clearly before them that they really don't know who he is. At least, not the kind of Messiah he has come to be.

Let's take a look at these words that begin the second part of the book of Mark, beginning at verse 31.

"He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. 'Get behind me, Satan!' he said. 'You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.'

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.' And he said to them, 'I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.'"

What's the problem? Peter has just said, "You are the Christ." That's just like us saying, Jesus is my personal Savior and Lord. It's the right answer. Peter believed to the very core of who he was that Jesus was the Messiah, was the Christ. But there was a problem. The problem was his image of Jesus. His definition of what the Messiah would be. Because Peter was carrying around all kinds of cultural baggage about who the Messiah would be, and much of it was based upon the Scriptures, but it had taken on a life of its own.

Peter believed that the Messiah would be a great military and political figure, that the Messiah would completely destroy anyone who opposed him. That Jerusalem would become the center of the world, that there would be world peace and it would be a time of vengeance for the Jews on all of their enemies.

So Peter is expecting a military leader. And I think he is ready to die for a military leader, but don't start talking about suffering, rejection, and death. Peter is caught up in cultural expectations, what Jesus calls the things of men. "You don't have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Peter gets it, but he doesn't get it. He ends up on the wrong side of Jesus, when Jesus turns around to him and says, "Get behind me, Satan. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Peter's image of Jesus was constructed from the things of his culture.

We still have that problem. We all know now that the Messiah has to suffer and be rejected and die, but we still, just like Peter, struggle with the things of men that oppose the things of God, the things of our culture that oppose the truth. So just like Jesus turned around to his disciples and said, "Who do you think I am?" I want to ask you to reflect for a moment, who is your Jesus? What shapes your idea of what Jesus is really like?

We can call Jesus "Savior and Lord" and still hold on to cultural ideas about him, which makes me think of Starbucks. When Starbucks began to envision having coffee shops, they hired a consultant from France to help them decide how to market their product. He had a novel approach. He did a survey, and as part of that survey, he asked about the best associations they had in their minds with coffee. What are the best associations?

And what he learned was that Americans love coming into a warm kitchen, in the morning, with the smell of fresh coffee perking. It's a comforting memory that we like to come back to again and again. And as he continued to survey Americans, he also discovered that we really don't like coffee. We like the smell of coffee. In fact, what we actually drink, as a rule, is a milky, overly sweet coffee-flavored drink, and so Starbucks was born. Great smell and sweet coffee drink. In fact, Starbucks sells as much dairy products as coffee.

Sometimes, I think, we Christians like the idea of following Jesus, but the Jesus we follow may be a milky, over-sweetened version of the real Jesus. Jesus our buddy, who's content to sit on the sidelines of our lives, letting us pick out the goals, letting us make the rules, letting us go after what we think will really satisfy us, and he's just there in case we call him to step in and he'll save the day.

The Jesus who loves the American dream. Who always, in every way, wants us to be healthy. Who always, in every way, is going to make us be wealthy. He wants to be happy on any of the terms we choose, because he loves us so much, and then we get angry when he doesn't do it.

Is that the Jesus we encounter in the Gospel, or do we pick and choose what we like about Jesus, and ignore the demanding part of what it means to be His disciple - to follow him. You see, at the very moment that Jesus teaches so emphatically that he is going to suffer, he calls his disciples to follow him into that suffering.

Take a look at verse 34, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." We are in the start of the second half of the Gospel of Mark, and the questions are really different now, or the points are different: I will suffer. When he points to the whole last part of the book, is the way of the cross and the question that Jesus has for his disciples in this part: Will you follow? That's what summarizes what's happening in the second half of the book of Mark.

Jesus begins by challenging them to deny themselves, to take up their cross, and to follow him. Denying ourselves means, at very least, putting aside the selfish ambitions, even the good ones. Pulling ourselves out of the center of meaning and letting God be in the center. When he said to take up your cross, he wasn't just pointing to a symbol of death, but a symbol of death with dishonor, loss of reputation, being an enemy of the state.

Can you imagine how much this meant to those Christians who were facing the arena? When they hear Jesus saying, "Are you willing to follow me into this, to not save your own life?" But to be able to lose it for His sake. Because the promise that is here is that as you follow me into that suffering, I will guarantee that it not just lead to the cross, but leads to the resurrection.

But we have to follow. We don't get a map. We don't know the root. We only know the Guide, and the Guide has already told us he is going to the cross.

So he puts a clear choice before them. Now most of you have noticed we've got two doors in the sanctuary today. Beautiful one over here, and one that looks a little worse for the wear, over there. We're going to have these up for this whole series. Because this door over here represents the way of the world, the normal way of thinking, and this door over here, represents the way of the cross.

And Jesus puts a clear choice right now in front of His disciples. They can define their world by the rules of the world around them and accept what their culture says, or they can choose the way of the cross, one door, one path or the other.

Just weeks after this, Peter is going to have to decide... do I admit I know Jesus or not? The disciples are going to be hiding in their houses, and they are going to have to choose whether to proclaim what they have seen or just try to stay safe. The stakes are going up.

Now our choices aren't nearly as stark as that. We may not lose or be in danger of losing as much as the disciples were. And we are unlike those early Christians who were reading this book for the very first time. We are not facing death in the Roman arena, but the choice is still real for us. Which door will we choose? Not just once, but again and again.

Is it going to be our culture's definition of the good life? What we hear on NBC, what we read in Fortune magazine, GQ, Vogue, what we see on Youtube, L'oreal commercials, Budweiser's commercials. Is this what we are going to be looking to define what it means to be human? What satisfaction is, what meaning is, to learn about sex and money and relationships and God? Is that the place to find it?

Or is it this door over here, the way of the cross. The way that Jesus says, you have to deny yourself. "Deny yourself" means saying no to ourselves, no to selfishness and self will, no to the desire to taste and touch forbidden things, no to an uncritical love of ease and comfort, no to always playing it safe, no to winning by the world's standards. We've got to say no.

But it's a yes as well; it's a yes to following Jesus. Following Jesus on our journey with God, open to all of what God has for us, even if it includes loss and suffering. We will choose him.

Now this is not just the big things like the moment where you have to decide am I going to be a missionary or not. That's a big decision. It comes with a lot of smaller decisions. This door leads to all kinds of little things. Holding our tongues when we have that caustic thing to say, forgiving for the 50th time, praying and something actually happens, sharing what we have learned to be true about God even when it seems risky, persevering with integrity even when we're tired of the cost, making time to know our neighbors, learning to love them, learning how to serve them.

I think most of us our comfortable with Mark 1 to 8. I think we've got this nailed. "Who am I?" "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." We're ready for that. What I think scares us is the second half of the Gospel of Mark. When Jesus starts to define who he really is - more than that, when Jesus starts to define what it means to follow him, he defines who we are, and that is the way of the cross. No cream. No sugar. Just the real deal. It seems bitter, but it's life itself.

So the big question that we carry into life is the key question that Jesus presents to us: will we follow?

Let's pray: God, we are scared. When we see the reality of what it meant for you to walk with God, we're sobered about what it means sometimes to walk with you. And so Lord, open our eyes, open our hearts, strengthen us for what's ahead and pour your grace on us. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

© 2009, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org