(Note: This blog entry is based on
the text for “A Good Question” originally shared on September 11, 2024. It was the
328th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced
with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
We sometimes say, “That’s a good question”
whether we know the answer or not. Jesus once asked a question when he knew
that the answer was not the answer. What? Today, we’re going to find out why.
The temperature here improved today, but it has
been well over 100 degrees for the past six days. There are several major brush
fires to the north of us, enough so that it smells like a campfire out here,
and there are ashes on outside surfaces, and people just miles from us have
been told to be ready to evacuate.
This is the kind of weather that leads many
people to reexamine their values and priorities.
Today, we’re going to look at an incident
that raises an even more fundamental question.
I’ve been trying to learn a little Mandarin
Chinese over the past almost two years. A man who was helping me in the
beginning once told me that it was impossible. Not just for someone of my age,
but for someone of almost any age who has not grown up in a Mandarin-speaking
country.
So, I thought, “win-win!” If I don’t learn
it, “Well, it was impossible”, and if I do learn it, “Wow!” he did the
impossible!” 😊
I’m still a beginner and probably will be
for some time. I think of myself as being on the edge of a vast ocean and my
goal is just to swim in the shallow waters. But, even now, when I try to speak
Mandarin with a native speaker, I hear a lot of encouragement.
I think, though, that when a Westerner speaks
Mandarin, or even tries, the compliments they receive are like what is said
about the dog that dances on its hind legs. It’s not that he does it well, it’s
remarkable that he does it at all. 😊
Some people had lowered their expectations for
who Jesus was, as well.
One day, when Jesus and his disciples were
on a small trip outside their country, Jesus asked his disciples who people
were saying that Jesus was.
They shared the things that they had heard,
that people had relatively modest expectations for who Jesus was. Did they
expect a complement from Jesus for answering this question? They didn’t get it.
What they got was another question. A really good question.
It happens in the Gospel reading that will
be shared in the vast majority of churches this coming Sunday, Mark 8:27-38.
It starts this way, with Mark 8:27-30,
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?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30 And he sternly
ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
Jesus’ disciples had been following him
around for a while. This question must have occurred to them. Maybe they were
afraid to say what they were really thinking for fear of being disappointed, so
they lowered their expectations with what they answered.
We live in a time when, just like in Jesus’
day, the world has lots of opinions about who Jesus is, and most of them are
wrong.
C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity,
said,
“I am trying here
to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about
Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his
claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a
man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a
poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.
Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something
worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a
demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not
come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He
has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Peter answered Jesus’ question plainly, “You
are the Messiah”!
But that’s not the answer to Jesus’
question. That’s an opinion, one that could be interpreted in many ways, as we
will see in the next verses.
The
answer to this question is not a noun. It’s a verb. It’s an expression of a
relationship. It’s an active presence.
Jesus had asked the disciples, “But who do
you say that I am?”,
The Gospel of John is full of Jesus’ “I am…”
statements, like “I am the vine”, “I am the good shepherd”, “I am the door”, and
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life”, and they all point to his being
God.
The Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew’s version
of this event, speaking of Jesus in Matthew 16:16-17 says,
15 He said to them, “But
who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are
the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered
him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you, but my Father in heaven.
That is the answer that is not an answer.
Jesus is God the Son, the deliverer. This has not been revealed to us by
humans. It can’t be. It can only be revealed by God the Father. It is not an
answer, it is an relationship. But Jesus ordered his disciples not to
tell anyone.
Jesus was the anointed deliverer that God’s
people, the Jews, had been waiting for for around 1,000 years. No one wanted to
say it. They didn’t want to get their hopes up by admitting it. But now, there
it was. And Jesus sternly told the disciples not to tell anyone about
him.
Why? Why not have them tell everyone about
this good news?
Maybe Jesus didn’t want to be seen as a
celebrity, but as the Savior.
Maybe Jesus didn’t want to attract the
attention of the Roman occupying empire. Yet.
But, this is the best news in the history of
the world. How could anyone keep that a secret. Well, apparently, it’s
not as hard as one might think. 😊
I read a story once about a preacher who had
delivered a sermon on the struggle of serving God in the world in the army of
the Lord.
Afterward, a man came out of the worship
space to shake the preacher’s hand and said, “I too have served here for many
years in the army of the Lord.”
The preacher said, “Really? I don’t remember
seeing you at worship before today, or in any of our community activities or
ministries.”
The man leaned forward and whispered, “I’m
in the secret service.”
I think that Jesus didn’t want people to
believe in Him just because of the show. I think that He wanted people to
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and of faith in Him because of what He had
done, the love that he was about to show by giving his life on the cross for
the redemption of the world, validated by his taking his life back again and
rising from the dead.
Jesus continues, in Mark 8:31-33,
31 Then
he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be
rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and
after three days rise again. 32 He
said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But
turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind
me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human
things.”
Peter went from having a really good
encounter with Jesus, to having about the worst.
Many people in Peter’s day believed that
when God sent a deliverer, the messiah, an anointed one like the great kings of
Israel, like King David, he would be a great military leader who would deliver
them from the Roman army. That’s one of the reasons Jesus drew such an
enthusiastic crowd as he rode into Jerusalem on the day we call Palm Sunday.
People are people.
We all tend to want Jesus to serve us, and
on our own terms.
Peter had come to believe that Jesus was
God. When Peter heard that Jesus was going to suffer and be rejected by the
religious authorities, and be killed and then rise again, this just sounded
nuts to him. He began to rebuke Jesus!
Jesus looks at his disciples and in turn Jesus
rebukes Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” Why? Because Peter was thinking,
as we often do, only of human
things, not on the things of God.
Jesus, who was at the same time fully human
and fully God, came to die.
Then Jesus told the crowd with his disciples
that sacrifice was central to being a follower of Jesus. The presence of Jesus
in our hearts is like a brush fire. It purifies us, but it also causes us to
re-examine our fundamental values. Our reading continues in Mark 8:34-36,
34 He called the
crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my
followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want
to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and
for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it
profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can
they give in return for their life?
Jesus said that those who want to follow him
must deny themselves, they must invest their entire lives for the sake of the
Gospel.
Money can’t save us. We could own the whole world
and everything in it, and that would not be enough to buy us eternal life.
I know this makes us feel uncomfortable, but
Jesus talked about money and the way we use our money more than any other
subject other than the Kingdom of God.
Why? As he said in his Sermon on the Mount,
in Matthew 6:19-20,
19 “Do not store up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves
break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in
and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will
be also.
It’s hard for us to talk about this, because
our money means so much to us. We think that our security depends on it. It’s
hard to let go of that.
Martin Luther, the 16th century
Church reformer, said that, when a person becomes a Christian, the last part of
them to be converted is their wallet. 😊
Because we tend to turn to it in every time
of need.
The good news of Jesus Christ, however,
tells us that eternal life is built in a living relationship with God, and that
it is a gift. It’s free for all who believe.
God doesn’t need our money, but we want to
give our money as an expression of our new life with God, and our desire that
all people come to eternal life in Jesus as we have.
God has already given every Christian
community everything it needs to accomplish that God has called us to
accomplish. Including, if it is God’s will, big things.
Therefore, we don’t ask for equal gifts from
all people or all households. We do ask for equal sacrifices.
We are stewards of all God has placed in our
hands. We are managers of our time, our abilities, and of our money.
We have been born again. It is natural for
us to give. We are a new creation. It is natural for us to help others. We have
been given eternal life starting right now, so that we now give naturally.
That’s why Paul says, in 2 Corinthians
9:7,
7 Each of you must give as
you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves
a cheerful giver.
So, here is Peter, first praised and then rebuked
by Jesus.
How would you be feeling if you were Peter?
Betrayed? Confused? Angry? Ashamed? Would you double down, or wait and see what
happened next? If you were Jesus, what would you do?
Here’s how the passage for this Sunday ends,
with Jesus speaking, in Mark 8:38,
38 Those who are
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them
the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels.”
Jesus lived in a culture that was based on
honor and shame. For Jesus to say that, at the end of time, in the Final
Judgement, that he will be ashamed of those who are ashamed of him made a huge
impression.
Can you imagine what it would be like than
to encounter Jesus and to see that he was ashamed of you?
And yet, what is our hope? Only the cross. That
the cross, the blood of Jesus, has set us free from all our guilt and
____ shame!
Jesus knows that his teachings are going to
be unpopular with some, even counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. What is
his answer? “Be not afraid”
Jesus is the Messiah, our deliverer, fully
God and fully human being. In him, we have been given new life! As Jesus said, in John
16:33,
33 I have said this to
you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But
take courage; I have conquered the world!”
When I speak Mandarin to a native speaker,
they sometimes look at me like I’m deranged because they do not expect the
Mandarin language to be coming out of a Westerner’s mouth.
When they realize that I am speaking their
language, they relax a little bit, and maybe they’ll respond in Mandarin. And
often they are generous with their compliments.
But sometimes, they’re insulted because they
think that I don’t think that they know English.
And sometimes, they don’t want to speak
Mandarin. They want to practice their English with me, a native English
speaker. 😊
It is the same way when we begin sharing our
faith with friends and relatives, even strangers.
When we first start to share our faith,
people sometimes look at us as if we are deranged. The good news sounds like
crazy talk to those who are perishing. But, when they hear a little about
Jesus, he sounds like a nice guy, or a positive influence. But that’s all. And
maybe they will even compliment us on our Jesus.
But sometimes they are insulted and ask who
we think we are to judge them, or to believe that we know the truth and they
don’t. And sometimes they want to convince us that they are OK just as they are
and don’t need to know who Jesus is.
Who do you say that Jesus is? The answer is
not the answer. The answer is the relationship. The answer is knowing and being
known by God, God in Jesus Christ. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus is the answer.
Answering that question is just as important today as it was when Jesus asked it of the first disciples. The answer is God’s gift. It is eternity. It’s everything. It is our Savior. Jesus.
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