It is about four hundred feet from my house to the mailbox. (This morning, my pedometer said it took me 342 steps to get there.) Sometimes, the walk back to the house after picking up the mail is stirred with joy (a letter from a long-away friend), concern (an unexpected bill), boredom (yet another solicitation), or smiles (a look at the cartoons in The New Yorker). Things may seem different because of what was in mail.
It must have been that way for the disciples after Jesus told them what it meant for Him to be the Messiah (Mark 8:31). Things were different because of what was in their “mailbox”! Peter was so upset that he whispered to Jesus that “Sir, you must be wrong. The Messiah is a winner, not someone to be put to death.” Then, to dig the hole a little deeper, Jesus told the gathered crowd what it meant to be on His team (Mark 8:34): “You’ll have your own cross to bear and if you fail to carry it fully, I’ll be embarrassed and ashamed of you.” That’s a lot to read as you walk back to the house from the mailbox! Things suddenly got different for the disciples!
That was a strange kind of evangelism: “Come, follow me, and you’ll get a cross to carry.” That must be in the small print of what was agreed to when we were baptized!
The disciples had some bad guesses as to who Jesus might be (Mark 8:28). Sometimes, we still make some bad guesses as to who Jesus might be, but the truth He told that day with the disciples is still the truth. When Matthew describes this account, he notes that Jesus points out to Peter that Peter didn’t figure out that Jesus was the Christ all by himself; it was a divine gift if Peter was able to understand (Matthew 16:17). It is still true that we are able to acknowledge Jesus is the Messiah only by the divinely given gift of faith.
If we had been put in charge of designing the pattern for the Messiah, most of us would have come up with a plan far different from what Jesus undertook. Do you suppose God knows better than we do?! The final word in this focal text is a good, encouraging word: “The Son of Man will come in glory” (Mark 8:38). Sometimes we get a taste of that glory even as we pursue this life. Sometimes, we wait until Jesus shares heaven with us. Sometimes, we shall see it fully when the Kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. Isn’t that how Jesus said we should pray?
