Listening… Mark 8:31-38

There is an old saying that goes something like this: God gave us two ears and one mouth. Why? So we would listen before we spoke.  Listening is something that a lot of us really don’t want to do. After all, our lives have stories worth telling and why would we not want others to know those stories too. Now I can be just as guilty as the next person talking more than I am listening, but when I am talking, I am not listening. Of course there are a number of different reasons why we need to take more time to listen.  And one of those times is when someone is trying to tell us something that we really need to hear and understand before we start responding either with questions because we want to know more or with our own interpretation of what we believed that we heard.

When I was young, we played a game in elementary school that you no doubt played with your friends. We called it Broken Telephone. One person would whisper something to the person next to them and so on until it reached the last person. That person would then say out loud what they had heard. Often the message at the end didn’t match with the original. And that happens for a number of reasons – one of which no doubt is that we hear what we want to hear and ignore that which we choose to ignore.

At other times we just want to deny what we have heard because it scares or upsets us and goes against what we may hope for or desire. Such is the case in today’s lesson from the gospel of Mark.  Peter has been with Jesus for a good period of time and he has developed a special bond of friendship with his Master and Lord.  The last thing he wants to hear is Jesus’ prediction of his suffering, rejection, and death.  The part about rising on the third day didn’t even register.  All Peter really heard was suffering, rejection and death.  How could someone who was so well loved by so many in the region where Jesus was teaching and preaching and healing end up undergoing whatever suffering meant, being rejected by the religious leaders of the day, and killed!  It was unimaginable to Peter.  And he was not willing to believe the words he was hearing.

Why on earth would Jesus say such things? He must be out of his mind. I need to intervene and stop him from saying these things.  And so he rebukes Jesus. What exactly he said we aren’t told but no doubt he was cautioning Jesus that such things being said in public was the surest way to make them come true and that was the last thing that Peter ever wanted to imagine could really happen.

Jesus’ response to Peter is to call him by the name of the one who had tempted him in the wilderness – Satan! No doubt Peter was taken aback by the idea that his concern for Jesus’ safety and well-being could be seen as the words of the tempter himself. Peter was no enemy of Jesus and yet Jesus had said so in his rebuke to Peter.

Jesus knew that there was a divine plan that must come to fruition.  He knew that this was not the way that humans would think.  And he clearly knew that Peter’s rebuke was the expected human response to that public declaration of Jesus. What a shock it must have been to Peter. His response to Jesus has been compared to that of the tempter himself and he has been told that his focus is not on divine things but on human things. After all he has learned from Jesus, he still struggles to grasp the divine purpose that is the life and ministry of Jesus.

Now I’m not condemning Peter because no doubt the other disciples were thinking what Peter said and I am sure that I would have had the same reaction if I were Peter.  After all, we know the end of the story; they were living it day by day.

It is at this point that Peter and the others are called together and Jesus invites them to listen.  “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Following Jesus was taking on a whole new dimension. It was going beyond listening to the wisdom of a great teacher or being a witness to a great healer. This was asking a commitment of even those who were already disciples to take the path that Jesus was preparing to take – a path that would lead to suffering and rejection and to the cross.  To be hung on a cross was the severest punishment a person could experience in that time. You would suffer greatly and your suffering and death was a sign of your rejection by the society in which you had lived. That was the future that Jesus was putting before the disciples and those who might be considering joining him.

Mark recounts this event in the life of Jesus and the disciples immediately preceding his account of the Transfiguration. Peter and the other disciples have heard the challenge of Jesus to take up their cross and follow him. He then takes three of them with him to the mountain where they see Moses and Elijah with Jesus.  This is a pivotal moment for Jesus and for the disciples. They are filled with questions about what it all means.  One day they will come to understand but for now it is for them to listen to this declaration of Jesus and decide for themselves how they will respond.

As they listen, they hear the choice that is laid before them: Save their life from any suffering, rejection or death and lose it; or lose their life because they chose to believe in Jesus and the good news that he has shared and save it.  How on earth are they going to save their life by losing it? Jesus will show them by his own path of suffering, rejection and death on the cross that will be followed by his rising from the dead three days later. And while we do not rise three days after our own death, we do know that because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too shall live again.  All that we believe and all that we hope for will be realized when the Son of Man returns in glory.

Remember the words of Hebrews 11: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  And in Hebrews 12: Let us run the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

AMEN