When Jesus takes time to explain things, it’s time to listen and reflect, not listen and reject.  Jesus begins to explain what will happen (16:21).  Peter doesn’t like it.  Well, neither do we.  Later, the disciples all say they’d lay down their lives for Jesus (Mt 26:35).  His living is more important than their dying, and that’s true: our life depends upon it.  Peter and the rest misunderstand, though.  Have you ever felt like you have misunderstood Jesus, or recognized that, indeed, you have?  What did that feel like?  His living is more important than our dying, yet our living depends upon his dying.  In his dying is our true living, our eternal living, in God’s presence, beholding God without filter.  Here, now, we see dimly, but not then.  What gets us to that then is faith.  Our faith is built upon what Jesus explains: he must go to Jerusalem and must suffer many things at the hands of the religious powers and authorities, who will have him put to death.  And he will rise (16:21).

It seems Peter had stopped listening by that point.  Do we hear what we want to hear from Jesus, dear Jesus, only to stop listening when our Jesus starts to say things, explain things, we don’t want to hear?  What does Jesus say that you’d rather not hear?  The religious powers and authorities hear plenty they don’t want to hear.  It isn’t the people who have Jesus killed.  It isn’t the Romans, who could have cared less about the Jews and their precise religion.  The Romans put him to death, but they aren’t the ones who have Jesus killed: it’s the religious powers and authorities, who know that is the only way to silence Jesus, to keep him from speaking over them.  That remains a warning for us to this day.

Peter and the rest knew what the Messiah would do, why he would come.  They knew why they left everything that had mattered to them to follow Jesus: the Messiah was going to reorder the world here, now.  Change, now, revolution, now, our world, our way, now.  Now, Jesus is saying, explaining, that it isn’t going to be that way.  Let’s not be surprised by what Peter does and says!  I’d do it—I’d have too much invested in my vision not to!  Disappointment doesn’t begin to express their reaction.  Jesus isn’t going to remake the world the way we hoped.  We don’t see that he has changed the world.  We don’t see where he is changing the world.  Well, we’re not seeing hospitals, then; we’re not seeing charities doing holy work right now everywhere.  We’re not seeing each other, in that case.

Jesus did not promise to change the world, not from the outside, anyway.  He came to change hearts.  That’s where change happens, that’s where the world is remade: in individual hearts, hearts that Jesus awakens from the darkness of falsehood, the blindness of self-service, self-seeking.  If you’re looking for Jesus to change the outward things of the world, you will always be disappointed: a recipe for bitterness, the bitterness unto betrayal.  You will always be looking in the wrong place, but it’s so much easier to look outside than to look within.

Satan (16:23).  Jesus gives Peter another name, Satan: adversary, foe, stumbling block.  A new name is a powerful thing.  Each of us can have a new name as followers of Jesus: Peter or Satan.  Personally, I prefer Peter.  I sometimes wonder, though, if I’m not living more like a satan: opposed to Jesus, to his way, his way for us to live on this earth, live unto his Father in heaven.  As we are Peter, the rock upon which Jesus will build his church, God is our Father in heaven, too, but as we are satan, God will not acknowledge us as any children of His.

To be a satan, an adversary, a foe, is to live for the interests of the flesh, making God a means to our ends: our world, our way.  In Eugene Peterson’s rendering, Jesus responds to Peter: “You have no idea how God works.”  How do we know the concerns of God?  We have God’s Word.  Here, God explains to us all that needs to be explained in order for us to know how to live according to God’s concerns.  God does not explain all things.  Not everything can be explained.  Not now, not here.  But we want what we want here and now.  We want the kingdom, now, here, our version of it, anyway.

Jesus doesn’t ask if we want the kingdom.  He asks if you want to be his disciple (16:24).[1]  Do you want to be a disciple of Jesus?  You’re here today; you’re answering Yes.  The desire must be there.  No desire, no discipleship.  We want God to feed the fires, the warming, purifying, comforting, transforming fires of our discipleship, the fire of the Spirit.  There’s so much in this world, in our lives, and in us, that dampens those fires, dampens our discipleship.  Like some of the things Jesus says.

Everything Jesus says is good.  And I challenge you to tell me, candidly, that Jesus never says anything that causes you any hurt, or worry, or wounded confusion.  Can you tell me, candidly, that there is nothing Jesus says that you kind of wish he hadn’t said?  Or wish at least that I wouldn’t bring it up: you know, sort of benevolently overlook what the Bible says?  We know we walk in dimness now; we do not see clearly—that’s clear!—but it won’t be so on that day known to the Father only.  I have faith that it will be a day of joy and gladness.  It will be hard to get there without humility, though: the humility that is always confessing that we are wrong and God is right.  No wonder people think we’re fools!

Pastor and biblical scholar W. Graham Scroggie writes that “each of us is the disciple of him or that which we follow.”[2]  We have many passions and many pursuits.  Some of you are passionate about sports, still.  Some are passionate about politics.  Facebook might not really be the best place for that passion, yet where else can our voices be heard, today?  Except when our posts get blocked.  Some are passionate about home and garden: the one space at least somewhat under our control, the one corner of the world that we can have some hope of changing, reshaping to our liking.  Some are passionate about food—maybe Americans are a little too passionate about food, or at least about eating, but change is hard, especially where it’s needed most, in here, not out there—we want our sugar, our salt, and our fat!  You can name other passions: many I haven’t mentioned yet.  Each of us is the disciple of who or what we follow.  Jesus calls us to follow him.  We answer yes.  We want to follow, anyway, we think.  But then we have to follow, and Peter and the rest, listening to Jesus explain things to them, they don’t really like what they’re hearing.  This isn’t what they had signed on for.

Why this way, Jesus?!  Why suffering and betrayal and death?  Defeat.  It all sounds like wretched defeat.  And what about us?!  As for rising again (if you heard that), who knows what that means?  Bring the kingdom here, now, by your power and glory, by divine conquest.[3]  Power and conquest we get: we have a long acquaintance.  Only Jesus comes to show us, to cause us to affirm, that we don’t understand what power is, understand what glory is, understand at all.  We have no idea how God works.

Power, conquest—to change the external arrangements of the world, the power arrangements, how material things are doled out based upon what principle—that would not have dealt with the actual problem.  The actual problem is not external, not a matter of the proper distribution of awards and punishments, but internal.  It is a problem of the mind, the heart, the will: sin, the way of Satan, opposed to God, opposed to God’s way, and therefore opposed to God’s Word.  Jesus did not come to bring an end to the oppression of one man by another, one group by another, though, were all to follow in the way of Jesus, such things would come to an end.  Jesus came to deal with the underlying problem, the root problem: sin—our un-crossable distance from God.  Un-crossable from our side of the void, but crossable from God’s side.

To cross to God’s side only requires that we lose our life, for the sake of Jesus (6:25).  We must die to self, deny self.  I suspect you understand that self-denial doesn’t mean giving up chocolate or TV or your digital devices forty days out of the year.  It doesn’t mean accomplishing grueling feats by sheer will power.  It doesn’t mean voting against your conscience.  It means self-discipline for Jesus, being discipled by Jesus, in the power of the Spirit.  As this happens, we no longer make self-satisfaction the main aim and ultimate goal of our lives.  That’s not so easy, is it?  We really want things.  The things that matter to us, the things we care about—we really want those things our way.  That’s what most of our fights and bickerings are about.  And here Jesus is, telling us that’s not The Way.

Scroggie paraphrases an earlier biblical scholar, Henry Barclay Swete, “The man whose aim in life is to secure personal safety and success, loses the higher life of which he is capable, and which is gained by those who sacrifice themselves in the service of Christ.”[4]  To achieve personal safety and success in this life is not so difficult: just go along; you have to go along to get along.  Go along with the world.  Do what the right people do.  Believe what the right people believe.  Say what they say.  Feel the way they tell you that you should feel.  To what they bow down, you bow down.  Forget any higher life is available, being offered to you.

Give up everything here, all our hearts had been set upon?  Give up safety in this life, success in this life?  Safety and success are the dimensions of the foundation of our life!  Maybe we never had high hopes for prestige, but how about hopes of being recognized for your work, your service?  How about giving up any expectation of thanks or even the hope for it, here?  What Jesus explains, what left his disciples shocked and bitter unto betrayal, is that to follow him could well mean, almost certainly will mean, that even the greatest service gets you the least prestige or recognition, or even thanks.[5]  Jesus knew exactly what he was talking about, didn’t he?  Though there was one who, at the cross, did recognize Jesus (Mk 15:39).

Swete speaks of “the struggle between self-seeking and self-sacrifice.”[6]  It’s ongoing.  It wears us down.  We get to feeling exhausted, maybe a little hopeless.  Jesus tells us to change our priorities, adopt the values that come with following Jesus.  To do so is to find your life.  What was lost is found, and the angels rejoice: I want to hear their rejoicing; I want you to hear it, too.  What is your soul worth?  God says it’s worth the life of His Son.  What does the world say?  Soul?  What soul?  Soul music?  Soul food?  Soul mate?  The world knows this word soul but can’t tell you anything helpful about it.  Only God can, and He does, He wants to, wants to explain it all to you.  At what point do we stop listening?

Maybe it’s at this point of self-sacrifice.  We know selfishness is not good; we’re quick to see it, in others.  Should we seek nothing for ourselves, though?  Nothing?  Is self-seeking really so wrong?  How much can a person sacrifice, after all?  At what point is it enough?  Are we just to give and give and give?  What about getting?  Are we to be left with nothing?  Nothing for me?  When do I get something?  What about me?  That’s exactly what Peter is saying to Jesus.  I hear it; I hear it so clearly.

Give your clothing.  Have you no extra?  Can you not obtain more?  Give your food.  Can you not get more?  Give your money.  Can you not earn more, or do you live so far beyond your means that you have none to give?  Give your time: how much will you then have, in eternity?

We’ve got the hold tightly part down; the let go lightly part we’re still working on, and we will be, all through this life.  But we aren’t alone in this work, and it’s not as if we have no helper.  Whatever we give up, here, we will get back, there—Jesus spoke about that, explained that, on several occasions.  Jesus is very clear with his disciples: the Son of Man will come, and “he will reward each person according to what they have done” (16:27).  David affirmed that “The Lord rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness” (1 Sam 26:23).  The psalms sing of God, “You reward everyone according to what they have done” (Ps 62:12).  The wisdom for living of Proverbs reminds us that “The faithless will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good rewarded for theirs” (Pr 14:14).  Through Jeremiah, God says, “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve” (Jer 17:10).  How true it is, that “the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward” (Pr 11:18).

We know there will be glory for us on that day known to the Father, glory we will give to God, who gives us eternal life with Him.  What about this life, here, now?  Jesus is rather clear about that.  As for this life, there will be hardship.  Jesus knew all about it.  But we aren’t Jesus.  We just know, feel, we can only take so much hardship.  We wonder what will make the hardship go away.  Peter wanted to take it away—he knew, just knew, that Jesus could make it go away, and he was right, but he was wrong, too.  I’d like to be able to tell you there’s something that will make the hardship go away.  I wouldn’t be telling the truth.  There is hope, though.  There is someone who can be with you in the hardship, if you take him with you, if you want to.  Jesus shows us how to live in this life to have life with God.  Most days, probably, we live focused on this life, this day, not on the life to come, or what God expects of us in this very moment.  Hardship somehow seems to direct our focus back upon ourselves, yet God would use hardship to redirect our focus to others.  Jesus came for others.  Will we go for them?

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

               [1] Thanks to W. Graham Scroggie’s commentary on Mark for drawing my attention to this.

               [2] W. Graham Scroggie.  Gospel of Mark.  Study Hour.  Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1976.  151

               [3] Power, glory, conquest—the words here are William Barclay’s.

               [4] Scroggie, 152.

               [5] Thanks to William Barclay, for this insight.  Gospel of Matthew.  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  151.

               [6] Scroggie, 153.