Who do you say that I am

When Peter responds to Jesus’ question with the right answer, that Jesus is the Messiah, we breathe a sigh of relief. (Mark 8:27-35). The rift between the reader and the characters appears to be closed. However what Peter quickly learns is that grasping Jesus’ identity is not simply about getting the title right. Naming does not define. Mark opens the can of worms again, this time between expectations of the title Messiah and the reality of what Jesus’ role as Messiah is. Jesus pivots immediately and  reveals how the Son of Man must suffer and die and be raised after three days. Jesus says all this with a boldness that contrasts the secrecy preferred only two verses earlier.


A suffering Messiah, is this what Peter and the disciples were prepared to hear or understand? Jesus does not suffer and die because suffering is good. The necessity of the suffering is attributed to his turning over the rules currently designed to exclude most observant Jews of the time. In so doing Jesus served as a model, reaching out to those who are ostracized, considered unclean or marginalized.  Mark has already profiled this suffering in the story of John the Baptist’s death in chapter 6. John is arrested and dies because he ran afoul of those in power. God’s kingdom does not line up with those who subscribed to the love of power vs power of love..


What we find then in this passage in Mark is a series of questions about identity and expectations. It is important that we realize that these issues are not locked in the past. This was not only a problem for the disciples or those early Christians to whom Mark is writing. Mark profiles a deeper dynamic that spans the ages: human knowledge based on religious tradition are often in tension with the aims of God? We know the way things are, how they are supposed to go. If we believe God is active is active in the world and that Jesus is very alive in the world, then the question posed to us is not whether we confess Jesus as the Messiah. That is the easy part. We know what the title is. Then the question really becomes how do we understand what the implications of the title Messiah are? And how do our expectations not align with God’s?