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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Sometimes we let certain ideas and perspectives, we let very narrowed imaginations of what's possible, we let bad stories about God oppose the work that God actually wants to do in us and around us. Welcome to Commons. My name is Jeremy, if we haven't met. But today, we are continuing our path through the gospel of Mark. Last week we hit chapter 8.
Jeremy Duncan:And as I suggested last week, we encountered a major turning point in the story. All through the first half of Mark, Jesus has been right on the edge of cryptic. Like he would heal someone and then tell them to keep it on the down low, Or he would excise a demon and then tell it to shoosh. Even with the disciples, he's honestly been pretty low key thus far. But chapter 8 sets up a pretty interesting progression for us as readers.
Jeremy Duncan:It starts with Jesus in a boat with his disciples and he's frustrated that they really aren't piecing it all together. He's been hinting, and leading, and guiding, but they're just not getting it. By the way, it's my wife's birthday in 2 weeks, and honestly I kind of feel for the disciples here. Like sometimes we just need to be told what to do. Am I right?
Jeremy Duncan:Anyway, text me honey. Let me know. But rather than just be frustrated with them, Jesus seems to channel that dissonance into a new strategy. They get off the boat and they encounter a man who is blind, and Jesus heals him a little bit. And we talked about this enigmatic story where Jesus leans into some of the popular mythology of the day, and he seems to enact a common healing ritual, and it works, sort of.
Jeremy Duncan:The man sees, but what he sees are people who look like walking trees. In other words, he begins to see in part, but not clearly yet, almost exactly you might say, like the disciples do. And what I might say here is that when Jesus leans into our expectations and when He plays the way that we expect Him to, then sure, maybe we see Him in part. But I can almost guarantee there is more to uncover. Our vision is cloudy.
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus rarely fits nicely into our categories. So So this time Jesus touches the man again, and this time the man sees clearly, and that sets us up for the climax of chapter 8. The turning point of the gospel thus far, Jesus turns to his friends and asks, what do you guys think about me? Who do you say that I am? And of course this is where we came across the second use of the word Messiah in the gospel.
Jeremy Duncan:Chapter 1 verse 1, the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah. Chapter 8 verse 29, Peter answered, you are the Messiah. And today we are going to pick up that story where we left off because if you read ahead, you know there's another twist coming here. But last week we talked about the profound kindness of a Jesus who protects that moment for his closest friends. He doesn't tell them who he is.
Jeremy Duncan:He doesn't demand they offer him a title. He even silences anyone else that might steal the moment away from his friends here. And he saved that space for his closest friends to tell their story with him. And for me, this is just such a beautiful parallel to all of our individual stories with faith. Jesus is not interested in rushing you along or getting you to the finish line, or presenting you with a pop quiz to pass or fail.
Jeremy Duncan:No. Jesus is interested in walking alongside you for as long as he needs to until you are ready to put breath behind your hope. And name what it is that you are slowly coming to trust in the world. Because ultimately that's what faith is. It's not holding the right answers.
Jeremy Duncan:It's that long slow process of finding our way to them. Except now, Messiah is officially on the table and we are on the road to Jerusalem and that means there is as much unlearning as learning ahead for us and for the disciples. 1st, let's pray. Our patient God who creates space for us, who guards that space for us, who walks sometimes ahead and sometimes silently beside, but always near us on the path toward our wholeness. Right?
Jeremy Duncan:We sense your presence with us even here today. And if we have felt particularly alone of late, would your loving spirit remind us of your commitment to us? Your gentle nearness that somehow brings both comfort and the space to find our own way back to you. And if on the other hand we know that presence well today and that care and kindness is familiar to us right now, then we would offer our thanks and we would commit ourselves to becoming that same gentle loving care for those near us. Guide us slowly, steadily, always back to the heart of God.
Jeremy Duncan:In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Last week we hit a major turning point in the gospel of Mark. Today, we find ourselves in some sense spun right back around. And today, we need to talk about the hard right turn, self disclosure, the son of man and the problem with Satan.
Jeremy Duncan:But today is going to be a bit of a heavy one because right here on the edge of Palm Sunday, Jesus is going to predict his own death. For the first of three times on his way to Jerusalem. But we start right where we left off last week. And if you remember, Jesus has just built to this climactic moment, the pivotal turning point in the narrative. He turns to his friends and he asks, who do you say I am?
Jeremy Duncan:To which Peter responds, you are the Messiah. And this is the first time anyone has voiced this hope anywhere in the Gospel, and that's great. Probably felt like a real moment for Peter. Like, I bet he was quite proud to be the one who finally said what all the disciples had been thinking, and why wouldn't he? Good for him.
Jeremy Duncan:Take your moment, Peter. Take a bow. You've earned it. Accept. Next sentence, verse 31 we read, that Jesus then began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, by the chief priests and by the teachers of the law that he must be killed and after 3 days rise again.
Jeremy Duncan:He spoke plainly about all of this, but Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. So Jesus turned and looked at the disciples. He rebuked Peter saying, get behind me Satan. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. And talk about highs and lows.
Jeremy Duncan:Am I right? Jesus saves all that space, protects this moment for his friend. Peter rises to the occasion and names the hope that everyone has been afraid to voice. I bet Jesus looked him in the eyes, locked eyes, gave him the good old attaboy. Peter's on cloud 9 right now, and to be honest, Jesus is probably feeling pretty good himself.
Jeremy Duncan:And seconds later, it all comes crashing back down. Remember, we talked last week about how Jesus is frustrated that the disciples just, like, they're not getting it. And so he tries a new strategy, he gives them this new metaphor, this man whose vision is cloudy but becomes clear, and it seems for a moment like they are finally on board. Setting aside Peter's rise and fall for a moment here probably felt like a big relief for Jesus too, right? I mean, he's been waiting for his friends to really see him, and he hasn't wanted to tell them what to believe about him.
Jeremy Duncan:He's been very patient in letting them come to their own realization, showing rather than telling, you might say. But here, now that they have, it's almost like Jesus now pours out everything he's been holding back. I mean, imagine you're Jesus and you've been wanting your friends to have their own space to come to their own conclusions, but somewhere in the background, well, you've come to some conclusions of your own. And you're starting to understand where you think the story is heading and what you will have to endure, what you are honestly probably most terrified about. And so when they open up, so do you.
Jeremy Duncan:And you tell them about what you see on the horizon, and you let them in on your fears about where the story is headed. You tell them what must happen, and they respond for lack of a better translation with, oh, Jesus. Don't be so dramatic. Like, there's a lot going on here in this moment. 1st, I can see why Peter doesn't want to hear this.
Jeremy Duncan:Right? He's been waiting all this time just to say what he has just said. It's a moment of celebration for him and here's Jesus reigning on his own parade. Have you ever tried to offer someone like a really deep heartfelt compliment and they shrug it off with, ah, you don't know what you're talking about. Well, imagine telling someone, you think they're the Messiah you've been waiting for, and they respond with, yeah, but I'm gonna die anyway.
Jeremy Duncan:So, whatevs. Now, sure. I mean, Jesus talks about his resurrection here, but let's be honest, once he tells his friends he's going to die, I bet they checked out, they weren't listening past that. On the other side though, there's Jesus and he's been holding on to his story, waiting for his friends to understand him, and hoping they would reach a point where he could be honest with them about what was ahead. And here, when he thinks they have finally reached that moment, they finally arrived, he opens up, and Peter shuts him down with a, don't be so negative.
Jeremy Duncan:Let's look on the bright side of things, JC. You ever found yourself in a relationship where you were very cautious at first, You opened yourself up very slowly, bit by bit, and it seemed like at every step along the way they were with you, tracking with you, they understood you. So one day you took the big step, and you told them that thing you rarely tell anyone else. And when you did, you saw it in their eyes immediately, that glazed over deer in the headlights look, like things just got too real, too quick for me. Sorry, I'm out of here.
Jeremy Duncan:Like, could there be a more vulnerable moment? That's where Jesus finds himself now. See, for all the times where it feels like Mark is constructing something very literary, a moment for us, this one honestly feels pretty raw. And so Jesus responds with, well, some raw edge of his own. Get behind me, Satan.
Jeremy Duncan:And there's a few things we should talk about here. 1st, I'm intrigued by how we get to this moment. Peter calls Jesus the Messiah. Jesus warns his friends not to tell anyone about that and then we read that Jesus began to teach them about the son of man. Now, son of man is a phrase that the writer of Mark likes a lot.
Jeremy Duncan:He saves Messiah for these big revelatory moments, but his preferred title for Jesus is actually son of man. Now the phrase here is, and that means son of man or perhaps even better son of humanity, but it's not a genuine Greek phrase. Like, you wouldn't say that in Greek. What this is is a somewhat clunky translation of an Aramaic phrase that comes from the prophet Daniel Bar Nasha. What's interesting though is that we actually have a ton of references in all kinds of intertestamental writings all through the Palestinian Galilean region of the time demonstrating that Bar Neshah had become, at least by the time of Jesus, a pretty common idiom.
Jeremy Duncan:A lot of people were using it. And this was not anything like remotely like a divine title. Lots of people would use this phrase for themselves and anything. It was meant as a term of modesty, A term that identified you with the common people, a son of humanity. In fact, Ched Myers, who by the way wrote probably like the book on Mark, a book called Binding the Strongman.
Jeremy Duncan:Be forewarned though, is a very large, very heavy, very academic tome, but he suggests a better translation to get the intent of this Aramaic phrase across would be something more like a human one. And William Lane suggests in his commentary on Mark that Peter's objection to Jesus' prediction is not at all based on the incongruency between the title son of man and his impending death. In fact, identifying yourself with the title Son of Man and then predicting your death at the hands of the powerful elites, that's exactly the kind of usage you would expect from a title like Son of Man. So, no, Peter's objection isn't that the Son of Man might die, it's that the Messiah can't possibly be just a Son of Man. And I get that.
Jeremy Duncan:Like who wants their hero to be just a human one? We want our heroes to be more than that. My kids watch Paw Patrol. Yours do too. Don't tell me they don't.
Jeremy Duncan:But it's a show about talking dogs who drive cars and save towns. And yet somehow in the new season, that's not enough cause now they all have superpowers too. Like nothing is ever enough for us. Even talking dogs, there's always got to be more than that. Jesus though, I think is doing something very important here.
Jeremy Duncan:Because it seems obvious to me at least that Jesus is very intentionally challenging his disciples' conception of Messiah that's gotten a little too big for itself He wants to bring it back down. Like, he avoided that word all through the Gospels, but here I think it's fair to say he's invited it from them. He certainly doesn't deny their claim, and yet immediately he begins to qualify it. Peter calls him Messiah. Jesus accepts that title but immediately begins to teach them about the human one.
Jeremy Duncan:That same common title that he's been using through the gospels thus far to talk about himself. Now granted, He said things like this, I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, Mark 210. Or the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath, Mark 228, or the Son of Man must suffer many things here in Mark 8 verse 3. But Jesus is using this common title to proclaim some fairly uncommon things about himself, and in particular, Jesus seems to be reaching back to the origins of this term that come from the prophet Daniel. There in chapter 7 we read that, in my vision at night I looked and there before me was one like a son of man, a human one coming from the clouds of heaven, and he approached the Ancient of Days, and was led into God's presence, And he was given authority, and glory, and sovereign power, and all nations, and peoples of every language worshiped him.
Jeremy Duncan:His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. His kingdom, one that will never be destroyed. What's important here is that you can see already in the Jewish story, there was a latent imagination of a human one, one who would come from God and establish God's justice in the world. This passage was by the time of Jesus understood as a Messianic prophecy, But over time, people had started to downplay the earthiness, the humanness of Messiah, and lean more into the clouds, the power of Messiah. In some sense, that human one had become something more than just that, somehow like the Paw Patrol, but now with superpowers.
Jeremy Duncan:And Jesus seems to kinda want to bring it all back down to Earth. Not to the diminishment of what it meant to be Messiah or Son of God. No. Jesus says he can forgive sins. Jesus says he is Lord over Sabbath, but Jesus also says he can suffer and he can be hurt, he can be killed, He can become the victim of our militaristic ideologies.
Jeremy Duncan:In fact, perhaps it is our militaristic fantasies about messiah that in the end will end him. See the justice of God, the dominion of heaven comes from the ground up. From the one who shows us how to be human. And yet somehow, consistently, we seem to want to invert that story. It's if we want God's will imposed on us rather than birthed within us.
Jeremy Duncan:And so Jesus, by returning to son of man language is not rejecting Paul's Messianic declaration, This is a calculated refocusing of his friend's imagination, a return to what the story was perhaps always meant to be. To which his friends say, nah. And I think with all of that in mind you can start to see why Jesus reacts so strongly here. Right? For a moment, he's felt seen.
Jeremy Duncan:For a moment, he has felt understood and he's unloaded his fears to his friends in an attempt to turn the story back toward its origin. And well meaning as he is, Peter throws it back in his face. God tells us that he took Jesus aside and rebuked him. This week, on Friday actually, we were having a little trouble with our morning routine. And my daughter who is 4 got it in her head.
Jeremy Duncan:She was like not going to preschool on this particular day, and she had a bit of a meltdown with Rachel while Rachel was trying to get everyone out the door. And so in the end it was decided that rather than drag her kicking and screaming to the car, Rachel would take our son to school, while daddy and Emerson would take a little time to compose ourselves before heading out for the day. And so I let her crawl into bed with me, under the covers, nice and comfy and warm so we could all calm down, and she stopped crying and started giggling, and after a few minutes I said to her, okay baby, I'm glad you're feeling better, but it's time to go to school. Let's get ready. To which she said, daddy, I'm taking a break right now.
Jeremy Duncan:It's time to be quiet. And I tell you, the irony of that phrase was I could barely hear it because she had perforated an eardrum, like, 5 minutes earlier with her screaming. And I'm gonna be honest here, I didn't love the rebuke either. Okay? Jesus, we're kind of having a moment here.
Jeremy Duncan:Can you not? It's a pretty strong word that Mark uses here. It's the same word for how Jesus responds back to Peter, but it also seems Mark has been seeding this. It's the same word that was used in chapter 1 for when Jesus silences demons. It's the same word that's used in chapter 3 for when Jesus silences the wind.
Jeremy Duncan:It's a little shocking here to see Peter try to silence Jesus. As an aside, please try not to do that to each other. Right? Like, when someone opens up to you, even if it catches you off guard a little bit, try not to let your surprise overrule their vulnerability. That's a gift.
Jeremy Duncan:Treat it as sacred. But I do think that this misplaced boldness underlines just how disorienting Jesus' words were for Peter. See as Christians, we often read what we know about Jesus now back into the Hebrew scriptures. There's a famous passage in Isaiah 53, we sometimes call it the song of the suffering servant. We read this.
Jeremy Duncan:Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought peace was on him, And for Christians, we read that, and we're, like, obviously, that's talking about Jesus. I mean, why couldn't Peter expect this story for his Messiah? But that's not at all how Jewish people understood that song.
Jeremy Duncan:We know from the Isaiah Targoons that were discovered with the Dead Sea Scrolls that Jewish teachers of the day understood that there were 2 characters at play in Psalm 53. One that represented the saving work of God. The other representing the long suffering nation that waited for God's saving. None of our later Christian interpretations were obvious to anyone at the time. They are post hoc renegotiations.
Jeremy Duncan:And that's okay. We interpret and we reinterpret things all the time as new information arises, but it also means I get Jesus' frustration with his disciples. And at the same time, I very much I get Peter's inability to even entertain Jesus predictions. This is a complex moment for both of them. This is, as I said last week, the major turning point in Mark's narrative that everything turns from here.
Jeremy Duncan:But there's one more thing I want you to notice on this verge of holy week. Peter takes Jesus aside away from the disciples to rebuke him. Peter turns away from Peter back toward the disciples and rebukes Peter by saying, get behind me, Satan. Now, Satan is an interesting term here. It's okay if you think devil, but that's not necessarily what's going on in Jesus' mind.
Jeremy Duncan:Throughout most of the Hebrew scriptures, Satan or hasatan was not necessarily a person or a being. It's better to think of it more like a title. So the adversary or the one who opposes. The accuser is a good translation of Hasatan. There's even a passage in the book of Numbers where God opposes a man named Balaam and the Hebrew literally says that Yahweh stood in his way as an adversary, literally his Satan.
Jeremy Duncan:Now, it's also true that by the time of the New Testament, a lot of Hebrew ideas are getting mixed in with Greek ideas and Hasatan was being used to translate the Greek word diablos or devil, and you get this Satan devil character that emerges and that lines up with some of the ways that Hasatan is used in the Hebrew scriptures. You just need to know that every time Hasatan appears, it's not necessarily being used to talk about a personified devil. It might also just being used in the normal sense of an adversary. Here, I think Jesus is doing something pretty unique with that interplay. Remember, it's Peter that takes Jesus away from the group.
Jeremy Duncan:It's Jesus that turns away from Peter back toward the group. And so when Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. Peter is for all intents and purposes already safely behind Jesus. Right? What I think is going on here is not that Jesus is talking to some devil, It's certainly not that Jesus is calling Peter the devil.
Jeremy Duncan:I don't even think Jesus is calling Peter his adversary. I think it's that Jesus is using this personified sense of Hasatan that's floating around in the popular imagination to say that sometimes we let certain ideas and perspectives, we let very narrowed imaginations of what's possible, we let bad stories about God oppose the work that God actually wants to do in us and around us. But Jesus also knows very well that that misunderstanding, that's not Peter. Peter is not Jesus' enemy. Peter is not Jesus' adversary.
Jeremy Duncan:Peter is Jesus' friend. And so what Jesus does is he puts his friend safely behind him and he turns his attention to this triumphalist imagination of Messiah. A story that he knows is absolutely opposed to the lowly way of grace and peace that's ahead of him. And he demands that that imagination of the divine, that conquering, trampling, victory at all cost image of God, that picture of the Messiah, that get behind him as well. See, what Jesus knows is that his adversary is not people.
Jeremy Duncan:Not even people who see the world differently than him. No. Those are the beloved children of God that he is here to save. And Jesus will not allow himself to be confused about that because Jesus knows that his adversary is violence and power and coercion and manipulation. Jesus' adversary is victory that looks like the conquering might of Rome.
Jeremy Duncan:And for the human one to turn his attention toward Jerusalem, he needs to put that story of power at all costs firmly behind him. And that's what he does here. Here's what I want you to know today. There are ideas and there are ideologies. There are aspirations that all of us need to learn to let go of in order to follow the way of peace.
Jeremy Duncan:But Jesus will never confuse you with the unhelpful ideas that you carry, with the mistakes that you make, with the times that you fall because those are not you any more than Peter was his misconceptions of Jesus here in this moment. And the goodness of God is the grace that comes to find us even in our bad stories about God, and slowly invite us to embrace better ones. So on this verge of holy week, may we all begin to let go of our ideas about Jesus that oppose the way of the cross and instead embrace the human one that shows us the incredible power of self giving love. Victory won through sacrifice that can never be undone. Let's pray.
Jeremy Duncan:God who is so patient with us, who continues to show us what real victory and real winning looks like, Which is not the power to crush our enemies or set aside those who oppose us, but instead the power to give ourselves away, and to demonstrate love and to have that change hearts and minds, to overthrow systems that oppress and to do it all through self giving love. For all the times that we have exchanged that beautiful story, for one that lifted us up and gave us more power and made us feel strong or sorry. And we ask that as we enter into these final steps toward Jerusalem, into your death and through to our resurrection with you, that it would always be the path of grace and peace that compels us forward. Not so that we get our way, but so that we follow your way to life. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Amen.
Jeremy Duncan:Hey, Jeremy here. And thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information. You can find us on all of the socials at commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community.
Jeremy Duncan:You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.church/discord for the invite and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.
Jeremy Duncan:We'll talk to you soon.