Saturday, March 21, 2015

Saturday, week five: The truth about the Messiah (Devotions for Lent from the Gospel of Mark)

After Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus begins to talk about suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection. Every insurrectionist crosses this dangerous terrain. These things are no secret. Even the resurrection part. Insurrectionists live on in infamy, at least in the legends told amongst the people.

Peter isn’t buying any of it. Of course not. He thinks Jesus is going to crush the opposition like a bug. After all, if you have the power to heal, don’t you automatically have the power to destroy?

If things haven’t been made plain enough to the disciples and the crowds, Jesus now tells them openly, If you want to follow me, you’d better be ready to pick up your cross. I am headed for execution. “Those who want to save their life,” he says, “ will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of my euangellion, will save it.”

Then he calls Peter, James, and John, up a high mountain, where they see Jesus’ body glow, are met by Moses and Elijah, and hear a loud voice from a cloud. “Listen to him!,” the voice bellows.

The whole scene is terrifying, this talk of death and these supernatural visions.

Jesus reveals what his Messiahship is all about. It’s ordained by God, undergirded by the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets. It has the power to transform everything. But very little of any of that can be seen with the naked eye.

They trek down the mountain, with the revealed glory, all that talk about death, and even their terror at these revelations behind them. They see no one but Jesus, just as he is and as he has always been, with the meaning of the Messiah hidden.

He will suffer, be rejected, die, and be resurrected. And not a single soul will understand.

Text for the day:

Things to think about:
It has been prophesied that the Messiah will bring peace.
Even though the disciples have been with Jesus all along, they do not understand.

Things to do:
Challenge your own understanding of who Jesus is and what his ministry accomplishes.


Jesus, transform my mind.

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