31 Then Jesus began to teach his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will rise to life.” 32 He made this very clear to them. So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But Jesus turned around, looked at his disciples, and rebuked Peter. “Get away from me, Satan,” he said. “Your thoughts don’t come from God but from human nature!”
34 Then Jesus called the crowd and his disciples to him. “If any of you want to come with me,” he told them, “you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me. 35 For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for me and for the gospel, you will save it. 36 Do you gain anything if you win the whole world but lose your life? Of course not! 37 There is nothing you can give to regain your life. 38 If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching in this godless and wicked day, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
9:1 And he went on to say, “I tell you, there are some here who will not die until they have seen the Kingdom of God come with power.”
Read Mark 8:31-9:1 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
Throughout all the gospels, we see Jesus trying to warn His disciples of His upcoming death on the cross. Not only that, He also tried to get them to understand that within three days after His death, He would be back alive with them.
However, it always strikes me as a little odd that the disciples never really ask any follow-up questions to when Jesus tells them this. Perhaps they were confused about it, or maybe they were not ready to believe it to be true. But another reason for their silence could be because of what happened during one of the first times Jesus shared this information plainly with His followers.
Mark tells us that “Then Jesus began to teach his disciples: ‘The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will rise to life.’ He made this very clear to them. So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But Jesus turned around, looked at his disciples, and rebuked Peter. ‘Get away from me, Satan,’ he said. ‘Your thoughts don’t come from God but from human nature!’” (v. 31-33)
Matthew’s gospel includes what Peter said to Jesus. Matthew tells us that Peter rebuked Jesus by saying, “God forbid it, Lord! That must never happen to you!” (Matthew 16:22)
All the disciples believed the Messiah would last forever, and they believed Jesus to be the Messiah. Because of these two beliefs, the logical conclusion was that the Messiah could not die. Jesus teaching of His rejection and death didn’t fit with their picture of the Messiah, but instead of reframing their view of the Messiah’s role and ministry, or rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, they simply try to discount Jesus’ clear words to them. Mark includes the statement, “[Jesus] made this [His upcoming death] very clear to them.” (v. 32a)
What Jesus was saying didn’t fit into the mold that culture had created for the Messiah to fit into, and that mold was something that the devil created as a trap for Jesus. While Jesus’ response sounds over the top when He rebukes Peter, Jesus wanted to break free from the mold that first-century society had created for Him. The first place He needed to break it was from His followers.
Two thousand years later, our picture of Jesus looks different. We have 20 centuries of history to look back on and back through when developing our picture of Jesus. However we are just as capable of building a mold of who He is today as His disciples were back then. And just like Jesus broke the mold of the first century, He will break the mold we have for Him in the 21st century.
Jesus doesn’t like being restricted to a box or a role that humanity has created. Instead, He submitted to the role that God the Father had set before Him and He walked with the Holy Spirit through His ministry on earth. While we may not understand everything that God is doing, or everything that He has done, our job is not to understand it. Instead, we are called to follow Jesus’ example and submit to the role that God has set before us, and walk with the Holy Spirit leading us throughout our lives here on earth.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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