Have you thought about how many miles Jesus walked?  He walks almost as far as Ethel Cloudt, who’s logged about 230 miles so far this year.  This going out is part of his mission and part of the call to his disciples; like him, they are to be going out, even to unfamiliar places and faces, where they don’t feel as comfortable as they might like.  Caesarea Philippi, for example.  After a couple days of walking and resting, resting and walking, and talking, and being taught, and reflecting upon what Jesus was teaching, had been teaching all this time, all he had been telling them, they finally arrive on the outskirts of a town whose very name celebrated the glories and powers of this world.  Caesar.  Phillip, Herod’s brother. Man’s glory, man’s ways, fallen ways.  Man knows all about currying favor with power, but comparatively less about living worthy of God; that is, living in the fear of the Lord.  God’s Word comes among us to teach us.

Jesus starts a conversation in a general way, though it’s clear there’s something he wants to get to.  It’s one thing to report what others say, quite another to say what you think.  Reporting what others say lays no claim upon you—hey, I’m just saying!  Don’t shoot the messenger.  What you think, though, what you believe—that makes you responsible, answerable.  We can report what others say with calm indifference; what we say for ourselves makes a difference.

“Who do you say I am?” (8:29).  Life hinges upon our response!  We know the right answer, because this is familiar Scripture, but what did it take for Peter to say what he said aloud, in front of the rest?  Yes, he was the impetuous one, the bold one, the blundering one—Peter knew he learned best when he learned from his mistakes.  But he was making no mistake when he confessed Jesus was “the Messiah” (8:29).  Or was he?

Before I get into that, I want to ask you to consider the other answers people produce, even people in the church, pastors and theologians.  Jesus—why, he is the best example we have of what a complete human life looks like: what a way to live!  Jesus, the best example we have of a life lived according to the highest morality—oh, if only we might live half as ethically as he did!  Christ, the philosopher—he taught wisdom with such penetrating insight into the human condition.  Christ the reformer, the revolutionary, come to change the world—with fire and sword if he had to.  Che Guevara had nothing on Jesus.  I don’t say there is no value in such insights, only that they miss the key point.  Each of those perspectives focuses upon this side of eternity, this life, this world.  Each of those perspectives, common enough even in the church, is secular, not spiritual.

You and I can be philosophers, reformers, and moral people, but we can’t be Jesus.  He isn’t primarily an example.  Jesus is something more, much more, far more.  The English Victorian poet Robert Browning wrote, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a Heaven for?”  Lovely thought, truly—only, the application depends very much on what one is reaching for.  Where’s your heaven?  If we reach for what is this side of eternity, rather than for eternity itself, God Himself, we come up short, miss the reward, miss the glory and decline the grace.

That’s Peter’s problem and the problem with which the other disciples also had to grapple—Peter was the first to blurt out what was in his mind and heart; he wasn’t the only one with such thoughts.  I suppose, beloved, even Thomas, even Judas were becoming convinced, by all they had seen, that Jesus very well could be the Messiah.  But what did that mean?  The prophets had alluded to one who would come, but it was not so easy to discern just what this one would do, or how.  He would rule.  He would purify.  He would restore.  He would save.  This much was known, expected, desired, earnestly.

Peter and the rest of them, along with many of their contemporary Jews, longed for a Savior who would restore Israel to prominence, power, safety, strength, victory, and peace.  They longed for one who would cause righteousness to be the standard for daily life in Israel.  It was clear that to accomplish that, this Promised One would need to have the power to reorganize the secular world—he would need to be like David, a brave, bold general and military hero; he would need to be like Solomon, a wise administrator and faithful builder; he would need to be like a Hezekiah or a Josiah—a zealous reformer and purifier of the people’s worship.  In short, the focus shared by the disciples of Jesus then, and among all too many people now, is a focus upon this life and this world, power here, power now: heaven on earth.

Live for Jesus, and let God remake the world.  Or is that not enough?

What Jesus says next might totally confuse us, until we recall what I’ve just been saying.  Mark, recording Peter’s recollection of these events, tells us that “Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him” (8:30).  But isn’t the point to tell?  Haven’t I been asking all of you, almost every week, for four years, to go and tell, yet here is Jesus, saying quite plainly tell no one?!

Have you ever, unintentionally of course, misrepresented what someone said?  You thought you were getting it right, telling it accurately, but you weren’t.  That has consequences.  Misconceptions have consequences.  Jesus is not telling his disciples never to tell anybody about him.  He is instructing them to wait until the right time to tell.  Like that letter that isn’t to be opened until after your death.  Timing is everything.  There outside Caesarea Philippi, the time had not yet arrived.  When would that time be?  That’s what Jesus was now teaching them, but what he was teaching was hard to hear, emotionally: it all seemed so wrong; it just couldn’t be right.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

“He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again” (8:31).  What sort of Messiah is this?  The Messiah isn’t killed, he rules.  The Messiah doesn’t suffer, he conquers.  Jesus doesn’t seem to know what a Messiah is or is for.  What good is a Messiah that doesn’t conquer, here, rule here?

And it wasn’t as if Jesus was teaching this in his accustomed way of parables that often left more confusion than clarity, more incomprehension than clear understanding.  “He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him” (8:32).  That can’t be right, Jesus!  You must be wrong, Jesus.  Stop saying such things, Jesus!  Tell us about power, here, victory, here, safety from enemies and harm, here.  Tell us what we like to hear, here.  Tell us about reward, here, peace, here.  What’s all this about suffering and death?  What a downer, that sort of talk!  Make us smile, Jesus, make us laugh!  Make it worth our while to be with you.  Oh, he will, beloved, but not in the way Peter and the others are expecting.  He is telling them and has been telling them all along about power, victory, safety, about reward and peace—about joy—all these things he will give them, through suffering and death, and rising.

Well who wants that?

We live so eager and determined to avoid the hard things in life that, when the hard things, insistent and determined, break through, we have no good way to handle them, and they destroy us and we are destroyed.  Beloved, Jesus is the way through.  He made the way.  Scripture explains suffering, though we balk at the explanation.  Scripture also provides the remedy; the remedy does not make suffering go away; the remedy is the way through suffering.  The way is power, but not ours.  The way is victory, but not ours.  The way is peace, the peace of Jesus Christ, who gives freely, fully—the peace of reconciliation with God, who loves us and who will never tolerate sin.  God is remarkably intolerant, beloved, when it comes to sin, even well-meaning sin, like Peter telling Jesus he must be wrong because he can’t be right.  God’s Word just can’t be right, because the hopes of Peter and the rest are so pinned on what is wrong.  How often we want the wrong thing to be right.  If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.  What sort of God tells me No?

“But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s purposes, but on man’s’” (8:33 NASB).  That’s been the problem all along, and it continues to be.  Outside the church, inside the church, it continues to be, but one has changed that, and one still can: Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The one on God’s side, who came from God, who is God, can bring us to God’s side.  “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (8:34).  Must deny.  Not optional.  But where to put our focus, then, our efforts, our devotion, our—dare I say—worship?  If you would know that with all your being, Jesus is saying, take up your cross and follow him.  Follow.  Jesus leads.  The Messiah will get the victory, but it’s the strangest victory you ever saw.  An unimagined victory.  Victory comes at the cross.  That’s part of why Jesus calls you to bear yours—you don’t bear it alone!  Victory comes at the tomb, open, empty.  Victory is Jesus Christ, the Word of God.  “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” (8:35).

Where is your focus?  What is your heart’s desire?  Jesus has just mentioned, twice, this matter of wanting.  What do you want, really want, most want?  God?  The urge to live is strong, and that’s good.  But if that urge becomes stronger than the urge to know the one who gives you life?  To lose your life for Jesus does not necessarily primarily mean to die.  It certainly means letting go of self-focus and self-devotion so that you may know Christ alive in you.  To have the way, to be on the way, sacrifice your way.  True life is with Jesus Christ.  If Christ is not alive in you, you are not truly alive, which sounds crazy, but just look around.

People, groups, movements, agitations, violence is being committed for the sake of gaining the world, and souls are forfeit.  They will not take up their cross.  Jesus speaks of an “adulterous and sinful generation” (8:38).  So many generations before, God told His people, there in the wilderness, nearly to the Promised Land, “No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors,” except for the one who “followed the Lord wholeheartedly” (Dt 1:35-36).  We know the very idea of bringing God into any of our national conversations would be met with scorn and ridicule.  In a climate of fear and manufactured fear and magnified fear, the one who tells us again and again Do not be afraid certainly is unwelcome—He keeps getting in the way of the great power grab, beloved!

Still, God is God, and all things are harnessed to His Plan.  Listen and live; love and learn.  The way to a healthy life, beloved, while we await the life to come, is to cultivate a healthy soul.  A healthy soul is fed, nourished by the Word, washed in the Word, clothed with the Word, armored by the Word, and finds ample exercise in living out the Word.  A healthy soul knows its true food and who feeds it.  A healthy soul wants that food, more of it, always.  A healthy soul wants Jesus, on his terms.  He tells us, he shows us, what it means to be Messiah, Savior, Brother, Friend.  Come out from the world; learn from Jesus.

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.