This sermon builds from the Thursday Home Group Jack Dumonde convenes which digests in advance the Sunday Mass readings which are today from Isaiah, James and Mark
In our discussions last week we centred on the Gospel reading from Mark 8.27-38 seen as the hinge of that Gospel book.
First 7 chapters show us who Jesus is. Now we move into why God sent him and what it means to us. Time on all three
Why I like Mark:
Short to read eg baptism and marriage couples given this
Action packed – always picked up on & Holy Week change to passivity (Vanstone’s Stature of Waiting)
Earliest Gospel 40 years after resurrection copied by Matthew and Luke. Only Paul’s letters are earlier. Papias 130 AD: Mark being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy
Mystery of uneven ending - the original may have got lost from the end of the scroll to be replaced by other texts in Chapter 16
Clear purpose set forth in Chapter 8 to show us who Jesus is, why God sent him and what it means to us.
Who Jesus is
27 Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ 28 And they told him, ‘John the Baptist’. They said, ‘others, Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’ 29 ‘But you,’ he asked, ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.’ 30 And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.
A crucial paragraph. In Mark 1-7 we’ve followed how Jesus’ identity emerges through miracles, healings and teachings. Today has the hinge question: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ Variations in how people see Jesus – then and now
‘You are the Christ (Saviour).’ Peter’s role (Papias) of voicing what was the truly the case. Wisdom given Peter by God (Cf Matthew 16)
Why God sent him
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again. 32 and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. 33 But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’
As Messiah Jesus didn’t and still doesn’t fulfil Jewish expectations
A suffering Saviour sent to rescue us from sin.
The world isn’t as it should be because we’re not as we should be. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.
God’s Son was sent to earth to show us our sin and to show us his own heart and bring us, in Victor Hugo’s phrase, to ‘life’s greatest happiness’ which is ‘to be convinced we are loved’
God made us for friendship. Sin made a barrier to this. Jesus died to destroy the barrier so restoring friendship with God.
What it means to us
34 He called the people and his disciples to him and said: ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
A church member in hospital offering their pain for all who’re there is focussed outside of themselves with Jesus for all
Faith is ongoing choice for God and his provision in Jesus
In baptism Jesus’ principle of losing life to gain it is impressed on us
The key we reckoned is losing John Twisleton, Jack Dumonde or whoever and gaining the Holy Spirit who keeps us capable of living and being and sharing the good news of God
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