Dealing with a Diagnosis of Death
 |
| "Get Behind Me, Satan" by James Tissot |
And 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?” And they told Him, “John the Baptist; and others say,
Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And He asked them, “But who do you
say that I am?” Peter answered Him, “You are the Christ.” And He strictly
charged them to tell no one about Him.
And He began to teach them that the Son of Man
must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and
the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He said this
plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning and
seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you
are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
And He called to Him the crowd with His
disciples and said to them, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save
it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?
For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of Me
and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son
of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy
angels” (Mark 8:27–38).
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
When you first receive
a diagnosis of death, your world spins. You are filled with questions that are
not easy to answer. There is a moment of disbelief. This cannot be happening.
Not now. Not to you. The days ahead are transformed. Priorities shift. Vacation
plans change. Leveling the low spot in the yard and laying new sod is suddenly
no longer important. A night at home with the kids is welcomed as a blessed
gift. Even though it is amid terrible questions, such news may draw us closer
to one another and God. A death-dealing diagnosis has a way of stirring up the
remaining embers of life, so we see certain things in a different light. We see
life. Not life as we want it to be, but life as it is. Every day, every hour,
every second, is a treasured gift from God.
In our text for the Second Sunday in Lent, the
disciples first hear a death-dealing prophecy from Jesus. Peter has just made
the good confession in answer to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” “You
are the Christ,” Peter says. The others apparently agree. Jesus strictly charges
them to tell no one about Him being the Messiah because too many people,
including His disciples, have the wrong idea about who the Messiah will be and what
He will do. And then Jesus begins to teach about something new and
inconceivable. “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the
elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three
days rise again” (Mark 8:31).
Jesus “began” to teach these things. Such news
would necessitate frequent retellings. Three times in Mark, Jesus predicts His
passion (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34), and three times, it just goes right over
the disciples’ heads.
Although Jesus keeps
opening the door, no disciple wants to enter that building. The house of death
is rarely a place people willingly enter. They need to be pushed or pulled
through the door. And this passion prediction, this first announcement of His
dying, is perhaps the hardest of them all. Later, the disciples listen in
fearful silence (Mark 9:32), but this time Peter responds. He feels compelled
to take his Master aside and rebuke him.
Peter has just
confessed Jesus to be the Christ, and now Peter rebukes Him. Perhaps we need to
linger on that moment… a disciple rebuking his teacher, a believer rebuking his
Lord.
Have you ever struggled
with God? Questioned His ways in your life? Such conversations are filled with
passion because God is at work, challenging and changing the things we value
and opening our lives to a direction we do not want to go. When we rebuke God,
it is a good time to stop, look around, and listen. Because, in those moments,
God is asking us to see things not as we want them to be but as they really are
in His Kingdom.
Mark does not record
Peter’s words. He trusts we know what such resistance would sound like.
Suffering should not happen. Not to God. Not to God’s people.
Why not? Why should
this suffering not happen to Jesus?
Perhaps it should not
happen because Peter trusts the religious authorities would never do such a
thing. One expects the Church to act faithfully, to abide by the ways of God,
to treat others with love and respect, and to reach out with the Gospel. Yet, the
Church does not always act in the way God desires. The leaders of the Church
can act out of power rather than love. For this to happen, I may need to
change my whole understanding of the Church and how the Church works in the
world.
Perhaps it should not
happen because Peter understands Jesus to be the Christ, and the Christ would
never suffer in such a way. To be the Christ means to be the Anointed One. God would
never abandon His Anointed One. He would deliver Him, rescue Him, save Him from
death, and not let Him suffer it. For this suffering and death to happen to God’s
Anointed One, I need to change my whole understanding of God and how God works
in the world.
Perhaps it should not
happen because Peter has followed Jesus. He has left everything to be part of
these disciples. He has gone all in. This is not just his future Jesus is
talking about; it is our future as well. We have believed in Him, followed Him,
and want it all to go well. We must change our understanding of discipleship
and what it means to have a future with Jesus.
That’s where Peter and
the other disciples are at this point. They’ve confessed Jesus is the Christ,
the Messiah, but they don’t really understand what it means. They don’t realize
the great cost Christ will pay to complete His work. He will suffer many things,
be rejected by the religious establishment, and be killed, and after three
days, He will rise.
When Peter tries to talk Jesus out of this
silly plan, Jesus rebukes him and says, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not
setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Jesus calls
Peter “Satan.”
That’s quite a slap across the face, but
consider that Peter shares the same confession of faith as the demons at this
point. They know who Jesus is, but they don’t want Jesus to go to the cross.
Peter’s rebuke is actually no different than the devil’s temptation for those
forty days in the wilderness. Both Peter and Satan encourage Jesus to be the
Christ without doing the suffering. Now, I’ve got little doubt that Peter’s intentions
were better than Satan’s, but you know the saying: the road to hell is paved
with good intentions. Regardless of their motives, both Peter and Satan are
trying to prevent Jesus from dying for the sins of the world.
But that is why Jesus became flesh and dwelt
among us. He didn’t have to become flesh to give us His Word—He’d been doing
that through the prophets throughout the ages. He didn’t have to become flesh
to work wonders, either. He became flesh so that His flesh could be nailed to
the cross so that His blood could be shed so that He could be the substitute
sacrifice for the sins of the world. No, He became man to take man’s place and
be condemned for man’s sin. His “defeat” on the cross is anything but. It’s how
He undoes sin, death, and the devil. It’s how He frees you from sin and death
and the devil so that you might have life in Him forever.
But Jesus isn’t done speaking of death. He
turns from talk of His impending death to the death of those who would follow
Him. “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:34-35).
The
mystery of Jesus’ suffering for the life of the world turns everything the
disciples know and imagine upside down. To save their lives, they must be
willing to give them up. The chief priests and scribes will mock Him on the
cross, saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself” (Mark 15:31). The
sacrifice of His life saves all who have entrusted their lives to His death and
resurrection.
Many in the crowds have been following Christ
for entirely material reasons. Many are also defecting (see John 6:60-66) when
it becomes clear that Jesus will not consent to become an earthly king (see
John 6:14-15). By not luring and bribing them with false promises of worldly
glory or free food, Jesus demonstrates His dedication to the mission on which
the Father sent Him. He faces His destiny squarely and tells the crowd and His
disciples that if they follow Him, they will face the same fate.
Jesus makes it completely clear to the Twelve
and all who have come to hear what it costs to follow Him. The great flood of
people who want to be healed but do not ask about the Kingdom of God is in the
background. What Jesus says here applies to every interpretation of the Gospel
that will make it a means to solve worldly problems.
To deny oneself is a radical obedience to the
most basic commandment, the First (Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 5:7), taking oneself
out of the idolatrous position of “god” and following immediately in the
footsteps of the Son of Man, who has taken on the role of Suffering Servant and
has denied His own rights and privileges by undergoing suffering and bearing
the sins of many (Isaiah 52:13-53:12. To follow Jesus means denying oneself,
that is, refusing to make oneself the sole object in one’s life but making God
and His will the center of one’s life. That will always involve sacrifices, avoiding
everything that might come between us and our Savior (see Mark 7:20-23), even
taking up a cross, and being ready to suffer shame and death to remain faithful
to Him. The cross is a denial of one’s own easy, self-preserving life.
Jesus
underlines the foolishness of chasing after a fading world with both hands
while being robbed of eternal life. The fool gathers in the whole world with
both hands but loses hold of his soul. No wealth but Christ’s blood can be
exchanged for one’s soul (1 Peter 1:18-19).
It
is unthinkable that someone would be ashamed of the mighty, loving God who
would give Himself for the world. And yet, the disciples cannot accept Jesus as
the suffering Messiah or confess Him truly. They wish to take Him from the
cross and to remove the cross from their shoulders. In contrast to this
warning, Paul says that he is not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of
God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).
The diagnosis of death from our Lord changes the way we see the world. The Church is a
gathering of sinners, constantly needing to confess its sins against its own
people and its God. The Messiah is a Savior of sinners, enduring the punishment
of their sin unto the point of death and rising from the dead to rule over the
strange and disorienting Kingdom of God. Discipleship is not an easy road, a
harnessing of God’s power to fulfill our projects of self-fulfillment. It is a
loss of life, a dying to self, a carrying of a cross, which brings us closer to
God.
Jesus
graciously promises a reward for those who accept the necessity of His death
and confess Him as Savior before the world. “Whoever would save his life will
lose it,” Jesus says. “But whoever loses His life for My sake and the Gospel’s
will save it” (Mark 9:35). Jesus did not come to save our dreams of what the
Church and the Messiah and discipleship should be. He came to suffer the
punishment of our sin to save us, to die under the reality of a corrupt Church,
so He might rise to build a new community of forgiveness. Jesus bore the
reality of death that He might rise to lead His disciples to new life in a
dying world.
A diagnosis of death is hard to hear and even harder to endure, but when God is in
control, it leads to a new vision of life. It may not be life in the way we
imagine, but it is life in the way only God provides.
Jesus—the Christ, the
Son of God—went to the cross and died that you might live. In Holy Baptism, you
were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. You were buried with Him
through Baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the
dead, through the glory of the Father, you too may live a new life. Even now, Christ
keeps you in the grace first given you in your Baptism as He feeds you with His
Word and Supper. You are sanctified in Him, cleansed by His blood. And He
sustains you as you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him along His
path through suffering and death, leading to eternal life.
Go in the peace of the
Lord and serve your neighbor with joy. You are forgiven for all your sins.
In the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are
from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
Comments