And Jesus went on with his disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do men 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 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, and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men."
And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man 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; and 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 (RSV)
"For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." (v. 35)
This event at Caesarea Philippi is regarded as a watershed in Mark's gospel and, indeed, of Jesus' ministry on earth. Here was the hinge of the before and after. All that had been said and done before this incident was preparatory to it; all that followed was colored by Peter's confession of the messiahship of Jesus. Up to now, the thrust of Jesus' message was the Kingdom; from this time onward, the focal point would be the Cross.
Prior to this event, there had been tumultuous weeks and days. Wonderful works had been performed - the hungry were fed by the thousands, the blind had sight restored, the dumb were made to speak. As a result, an emotional wave was everywhere mounting among every group - the common people, the church hierarchy, even the disciples. The emerging question was, "Who is this man?" The sick are cured? The winds and waves obey him? Is he just the carpenter from Nazareth, or isn't he? Then, in the quiet company of his disciples, the issue was joined when the Master turned to them and asked point blank: "Who do you think I am?" Peter - always forward Peter - replied, "You are the Christ."
Consider what this confession meant within the context of the crosscurrent of opinions in that day. With the disciples there was a consistently deepening conviction which grew from the general to the particular and was the product of their close fellowship with Jesus. Initially, they must have seen, in him, just an ideal man, a person of great humanity, a teacher with extraordinary insights and gifts, and a personality that drew people of all kinds to him. But, very soon Jesus, for them, outgrew this conception, for he seemed to possess a mysterious relation to the whole human race. His concern and helpfulness reached out to everyone and this Kingdom idea forecast a new society that would embrace all humankind. But there was much more: the longer these disciples were with him, the fuller they sensed, in his person, a presence unique beyond all ordinary experience; they felt the unseen touching their lives through him, and they might well have said, "To know him was to know God." This is what Peter brought into focus when he said, "You are the Christ."
The matter, however, does not end there. If Jesus is the Christ, the promised Savior of the human race, what follows now? What is to be expected of those who were his closest companions? And what is our task as part of the community of Christian believers today?
1. Jesus expects us to see Christianity in the light of his person. For many people today religion is no more than what they can get out of it. There is a religion of self-centeredness published from many Christian pulpits in these days, and blandished continually by televangelists over the tube. Its sales talk is: expand confidence in your own self and capture fame and fortune as your reward and prize. Even those who claim to be most "orthodox" err in making the fruits of religion something for one's own personal advantage. But, to qualify truly as a fellow traveler with Christ, the primary demand is to deny self. Jesus said, following on the heels of Peter's confession, "If any would come after me, let them deny self ..." (v. 34) No one can put self at the center of his or her religion and be a Christian, for Christianity can never be separated from him who was its founder; they are identical. The founders of other religions - Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed - might point towards truth, but only Jesus could declare, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Those who shared in his company and the fellowship of his spirit discovered, in him, truth alive and, when they accepted it, they found, through him, the only way to live.
2. Jesus expects us to carry his lifestyle into our own calling. One of the unique characteristics of Jesus' lifestyle was the investing of his life into the training of the twelve disciples. The impact of his mission depended upon their catching his vision and kindling in them a similar enthusiasm. This was to be the seed of the church, namely, a person such as Peter catching the vision and confessing Jesus as Lord. Wherever this was done sincerely, self was obliterated and the Lord of life became the focus of the disciples' commitment and devotion. Moreover, this attitude and resolve would be the foe of self-interest. Self-sacrifice would replace any attempt to grasp one's own advantage.
In this, Jesus' expectations ran counter to the selfish interests of the power structures of his day and wrote the ticket for his eventual doom. "Deny self ... lose life for my sake and the gospel's" - what do we have here anyway? The chief priests were bent upon saving their own positions and fringe benefits. The Pharisees did not care a hoot for the poor and outcast, but were concerned with legalistic details to save their own hides. The Zealots wanted to knife Rome and return to the ancestral power of the days of yore and, hence, they spurned any notion of a spiritual kingdom.
All these factors and factions were eating at the heart of the nation. Jesus felt the necessity, for the sake of his own people, to live out to the fullest the only lifestyle that could reform and save the human spirit and be an everlasting example before the world. "He who would save his life shall lose it ... For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" (v. 36) And this he expects of everyone still.
Happily and fortunately, again and again in the story of the Christian faith, countless ministers and missionaries of the Cross have been caught up with the grandeur of this sacrificial enterprise. Denying comforts, careers, and material gain, they have said, with St. Paul, "Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." (Galatians 6:17)
3. Jesus expects us, by sharing his life, to reach an understanding of what our life ought to be. William Barclay wrote, "God gave us life to spend and not to keep." There are life hoarders whose eyes are always on personal comfort, worldly status, and financial security. They build around themselves walls of protection to keep every challenge and trouble out. Theirs is a prescription for stagnation. They are unaware that, in spite of their caution, they are actually losing the life they have. But if they were to turn away from their protective security and let their lives, talents, and assets loose into the world of human need, they would accrue dividends of self-fulfillment, personal enrichment, and inner satisfaction nothing else can give.
Today, in the world of science, space, medicine, etc., there is a galaxy of experts who take risks, work to exhaustion, and live on the edge of burnout, because they seem to know where to put their values in life. All of them seem urged to pioneer against the tremendous odds of disease, poverty, and human ignorance of this universe. Daily they say "No" to every temptation to give up, to quit. Something within them compels them to go on, to stay on, and to out-think the mysteries of his farflung world.
And what of Christianity and the servants of its faith? Jesus still says: "He who would save his life shall lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." Do we have in the world of the Christian faith the same investment of "time, talents, all," as among the analysts, inventors, and researchers of the secular realm? Jesus constrains us to gain that sense of purpose which comes through commitment to what God wants for his world. We can learn it from Jesus as we see him leave Caesarea Philippi and carry his mission to Calvary. T. R. Glover said, "God could do no better than to be like Christ." From him we get a clear notion of the purpose for which we were born and, with it, we receive the vision and resources to carry it out.
William H. Foulkes makes us sing:
Take thou ourselves, O Lord, heart, mind, and will;Through our surrendered souls thy plans fulfill.We yield ourselves to thee - time, talents, all;We hear, and henceforth heed, thy sovereign call.