Who are we as followers of the crucified one?
To understand the gospel reading for this week we need to put it back in the story. Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is, and then who they say he is. Peter is quick with the messiah.When Peter (in Mark 8:29) names Jesus as the Christ he and his other disciples thought they understood what that meant. But immediately Jesus teaches them about the way of the cross. They way of God was through the cross. And as his disciples then they too must follow this path. And to be honest they don’t get it. And mostly, I am not sure we get it either, 2,000 years later.
William Loader[1] says of our gospel reading, “Clearly we are being offered an alternative model of being. It is for our gain, in our interests, to consider it. That is the appeal.… Instead of thinking only of ourselves and believing that it is to our good to gain wealth and avoid any path which leads to suffering, we are being challenged to be generous, giving of ourselves, even when it may mean suffering. The first image of ourselves and our good is to be set aside; instead we are to embrace the way of Jesus, of self giving love. Then we will find ourselves, our true selves. The merging of our will and being with God’s will and being, and therefore with love which cares for others as well as for ourselves, is the way of discipleship. It is also the way to real humanness - and the way of Jesus, and ultimately also of God!”
May this lent continue to be a time of making room to listen so that we might find our true selves in God’s will and being.
[1] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkLent2.htm
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