24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, Year 2, Sept.17, 2006

Scripture: Isaiah 50:5-9a. Psalm 116:1-9. James 2:14-18. Mark 8:27-35

It took me a long time to appreciate the Gospel of Mark. This also seems to have been the case with the Catholic Church in the first and a large part of the second millennium, but now this Gospel has awakened the Catholic scholars as well as the faithful because of its primordial place chronologically in the history of the New Testament and also because of its absolute simplicity and direct approach, almost having a journalistic style about it. Today's passage is at the very center of this first Gospel and is the crucial (think of crux, Cross) passage about who Jesus is for his disciples and for all of Mark's future Christian readers. In a sense it is the climax of the Gospel for it foreshadows the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus for Christian believers.

Mark's Gospel certainly is the Gospel of the Cross in its starkness and darkness. Jesus, like the Isaiah passage for today points out, is ready to head to Jerusalem and his face is like steel or flint fixed on this journey to Jerusalem probably for the last time. Peter through the grace of a divine revelation breaks the ice about who Jesus is. He is not John the Baptist, he is not Elijah, no he is the Christ or the Messiah! This takes place in a largely Gentile town named after the emperor and Philip the tetrarch in the extreme north of modern Israel and near the source of the Jordan River. The scene does not suggest that Jesus actually entered this town.

Jesus immediately silences Peter as they go on their way through the villages. This is indicative of what is called the "Messianic Secret" in Mark. And suddently when Peter begins to remonstrate and rebuke Jesus, then the secret is unravelled and Jesus speaks boldly that "the son of man (Jesus) must suffer much and be put to death and to rise on the third day." There is great dramatic and literary contrasts in Jesus' now speaking openly while Peter had a moment ago was telling Jesus not to speak thus. The same verbs are used for the secret of the Messiah, that is, that Jesus would be a Messiah modeled after the Suffering Servant of Isaiah; and that Peter in rejection of this type of open proclamation of Jesus has the same verb being used. It seem that Jesus speaks boldy the Gospel of his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, while Peter wants nothing to do with such a Gospel. Jesus then tells him he is an Adversary, a stumbling block for the message of the Gospel.

Yes, I read this Gospel with new insights and got the message for myself a lot better than in the past. Jesus is telling who he is as Messiah and is speaking from his heart with overwhelming boldness. Thus like Peter I want to deny such a tough message and not accept the burden of the Cross. But I become an Adversary or "Satan" when I do this for it means that I am opposed to the secret Jesus has just revealed. Undoubtedly, this first of three predictions found in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, is the most powerful one and hits me between the eyes. Literary scholars have also said that the point of view of the whole of Mark's Gospel is given in this passage namely Jesus is challenging the disciples and me to "think the thoughts of God and not the thoughts of humans." The only way to accept the revelation of the Cross and the Suffering Servant is through God's revelation and God's graces. I should not put my thoughts above those of God. I can only listen to the final words of Jesus in this pericope(selected passage): "If anyone wishes to follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34).