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Sunday, April 05, 2009
WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?
14th in a series on Questions from the Bible
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture: Mark 8:22-29a New Revised Standard Version 22 They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Can you see anything?" 24 And the man looked up and said, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking." 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Then he sent him away to his home, saying, and “Do not even go into the village." 27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" 28 And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." 29 He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Jesus asks his friends this critical question. Peter is the one who responds and says that Jesus is the messiah, the Christ. Jesus instructs them to tell no one, probably because he is not the kind of military messiah they have been expecting. Then he tells them he must undergo suffering and death, that he is on the way to Jerusalem where there will be even more conflict and controversy and he invites them and us to take up a cross and follow. They should not have been surprised. They had been with him long enough to see how the holy folks were threatened by him. They saw the outrage of the posturing pietists who were insulted when Jesus forgave people’s sin, troubled when Jesus welcomed and associated with just anyone no matter that they were unclean and unholy.
At this point in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is setting his face toward Jerusalem and toward the pain and death he knows will meet him there. His death will be because he is daring to disturb the fragile alignment between Rome and the Jewish leaders. He will be accused of blasphemy and heresy by the holy folks, but those are not charges that will interest Rome. They have no interest in theological squabbles. But when the chief priests and others accuse Jesus of treason, claiming that he is a king, when there can only be one king or emperor that will get the attention of Pilate. The Roman rulers wanted to make a dramatic example of anyone who dared to oppose them, so they chose for the rebels, the insurrectionists, and the worst possible form of execution. Rome used several means of execution to dispose of lawbreakers. Remember that John the Baptizer was killed by beheading, a quicker and less agonizing method. But for the people, Rome wanted to make an example of, they chose crucifixion, a much slower, more painful, and much more public form of death.
The victim was nailed by the wrists to the crossbar because nailing through the hands would not hold, and then the victim’s feet were nailed to the long upright portion. It often took several days for someone to die by crucifixion, and the cause of death was probably suffocation because the person could finally not raise himself high enough to draw a breath. Thousands of people were crucified by Rome using this cruel and elongated method. We need to reflect on how the cross has been changed with our celebration of Easter next Sunday. Before the death of Christ, the cross was an execution instrument, a sign of torture and death. It was ugly and fearful. What God did in resurrecting Christ, not resuscitating his body but giving him life in a new form, was to transform the cross into a plus sign, a picture of hope and life. This is particularly true of the empty cross. We will celebrate what God did on Easter next week. We will celebrate the resurrection, the transformation.
Why did Jesus die? There have been so many inadequate and clumsy answers to that question and these answers have driven thoughtful people away from the church because of the kind of God they presuppose. Some theologians have said that Christ’s death was a ransom to the devil. It was necessary because the devil had enslaved humankind and that only the death of God’s son was a suitable ransom. Others have said that God would not have been able to forgive humankind unless there was a sacrifice, a substitutionary atoning death. Think about this with me: what sort of God is this who demands the death of an innocent person so God can finally offer grace and forgiveness? Can’t God forgive without a sacrificial death? British theologian William Barclay dismisses this crude theory in his booklet on the sermon wall entitled, Who Is Jesus. Jesus chose to point all persons toward an abundant life and in order to do that he had to confront the shallow and mechanistic religion of his day and of our day, and when he did that, he made people angry and risked/gave his own life. He must have been able to see early on in his ministry of teaching, preaching, and healing, that as he continued to clash with the pious posturers, there was going to be a showdown in Jerusalem. When he entered the city on Palm Sunday and turned over the tables of the Temple merchants and money changers, he knew that the end was very near. He knew that his faithfulness to God was leading him to a cross, to death by crucifixion. That was the basis for his all night prayer vigil with his closest friends in the Garden of Gethsemane. These were well meaning friends who could not stay awake with him on the loneliest night of his life. He prayed a very honest prayer there among the olive trees: God, if it is possible, let this cup of suffering pass from me. In other words: God, I would rather not have to go through with what I know now will occur We see a very honest and very human Jesus praying in anguish among the olive trees. We need to focus on that image for a while because we have lost the humanity of Jesus. We have forgotten the person of Jesus and made him into an ethereal, superhuman being.
When Peter preaches the first sermon fifty days after Easter, he does not let us forget the humanity of Jesus, and that it is God who is the actor here. This is what he says as a summary of the Easter news, the Gospel news: Jesus of Nazareth was a man whose divine authority was clearly proven to you by all the miracles and wonders God performed through him. You killed him by letting sinful men crucify him, but God raised him from death. God has raised this very Jesus from death and we are all witnesses to this fact. All the people of Israel are to know for sure that this Jesus whom you crucified is the one that God has made Lord and Messiah. (Acts 2) We have not yet realized that the life and teachings of Jesus are still able to undermine our worship of wealth and status. If you do not feel him questioning our materialism and selfishness and reminding us, particularly in a time of financial stress, that a person’s true life is not made up of what we own, no matter how much we may or may not have, if you have not heard his warning to beware of all greed, then we do not know him yet. Jesus invites us to lose ourselves, to take up a cross, to take on a role that is costly and sacrificial, because, paradoxically, that is how we will find meaning. One of our Methodist Bishops, Reuben Job, was being consulted by a pastor who was faced with a difficult decision. Bishop Job listened to the choices the pastor had been offered and said that he had often found when faced with choices, that it was better to choose the path that had the shadow of the cross on it. He said the path that required the most, that was the most challenging and costly, would also hold the most promise of truly following Christ. The invitation Jesus gives us is different from the world’s invitation. It is to adopt the humility of children, to treat others the way we want to be treated, to be willing to become servants for each other instead of wanting people to honor and serve us.
He sets the example of becoming a suffering, servant messiah who is not recognized because his people were expecting someone like King David, someone willing to wield his sword and to kill the cruel Roman leaders and give back the kingdom to Israel. Jesus chose to become an entirely different Messiah, the suffering servant whom the prophet Isaiah told about. Jesus had long ago rejected the notion that the way to change things and to change people was with force, with a sword. He was also willing to live by that principle and to die by that principle. His willingness to suffer had its basis in the tradition of a suffering servant whose pain is redemptive and whose suffering brings people to God and to wholeness in a way nothing else could have done. Remember the passage from the prophet Isaiah? My servant shall prosper. He shall be exalted and lifted up.
There were many who were astonished at him, so marred was his appearance beyond human semblance. He shall startle many nations and kings shall shut their mouths because of him. Who has believed what we have heard? He grew up like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him He was despised and rejected by others A man of sorrow and acquainted with grief And as one from whom others hide their faces He was despised and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our pain. He was wounded for our transgressions Upon him was the punishment that made us whole By his bruises that we are healed
Jesus knew by heart those verses from Isaiah, his favorite prophet. He took that role upon himself so that the cross he knew awaited him in Jerusalem had become the answer to the problem of suffering we looked at in the story of Job last week. The shocking answer to Job’s question of why God is permitting Job to suffer and to be in pain, the truest answer for us as followers of Christ, is simply to point to the cross, the execution instrument that holds an innocent man.
Someone says that Jesus is the human face of God. I believe that. Do you want to see God in person? Look at the life, the example, even the death, of Jesus. Someone else said that only a suffering God can help us. Only a God who is willing to suffer with us, weep with us, go the distance with us, can help us. We began today talking about the conversation Jesus has with his friends as he set his face toward Jerusalem and toward the cross. Who do you say that I am? At the foot of the cross we get another person’s answer. Jesus is on the cross on the hill just outside the city of Jerusalem. The sign above his head says in ridicule, “The king of the Jews.” He has endured the taunts of the pious leaders who mock him and who tell him to come down from there and save himself. In one gospel, he asks God to forgive these persons because they do not know what they are doing. In the Gospel of Mark, he utters only one sentence before he dies. It is the cry of human anguish and loneliness. It is a quote from the first verse of Psalm 22: “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
When he has died, a Roman soldier, a pagan, who no doubt had seen so many of these crucifixions because Rome used them so frequently, says this in awe: Truly this man was God’s son. This week, this Holy week, is so important in the story of Christ. We are offering two important worship experiences to ground us in the whole story of Christ. They are the Maundy Thursday communion service and the Good Friday remembrance. The sanctuary will be entirely rearranged around our rough hewn wooden cross. These worship experiences will help us feel the feelings of that week long ago so that we can also feel the joy and the hope and the release of Easter. Do yourself a favor and be with us for those important services.