31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
Good morning. For all of us, disagreements come naturally. Disagreements also come in all shapes and sizes. Some are big, others are small. Some are with family, others are with strangers. Some feel important, others appear trivial. And if your ego is like mine, it often convinces you it’s not that you disagree with others, but it’s that others disagree with you and the “truth” you possess.
Regardless of its shape and size, rarely does one leave a disagreement feeling warm and fuzzy inside. More often, disagreements cause one to experience a chilly awkwardness. And yet universal agreement with God and with each other has always been more luxury than necessity, more preferential than essential, more idealistic than realistic.
Now in Mark 8, we have perhaps one of the most awkward disagreements in the Gospel. I mean where does the conversation go after your best friend calls you Satan? It must have come as shock to Peter considering he was just trying to help his best friend, the Son of God, see the error of his ways.
Now what was it about Peter’s rebuke that triggered such intense response from Jesus? I want to suggest this morning that it was not the absence of agreement between Jesus, Peter, and the rest of the disciples. It was something else.
Consider the difficult teaching that follows Jesus’ rebuke of Peter. Do we get any sense that Jesus wants to build a consensus in these verses. Do we imagine the disciples nodding their heads in approval upon hearing, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Do we see the disciples raising their hands in unison after hearing, “For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
Here and elsewhere in the Gospel, Jesus’ teachings seldom received a favorable response. Hardly ever did the crowds concede the validity of Jesus’ teachings. Never did Jesus’ teachings correspond with the prevailing wisdom of the times.
Thanks be to God that when it comes to becoming disciples, Jesus does not want our agreement or our approval, and more importantly, he doesn’t need it. For according to John 14, Jesus was, is, and always will be The Truth. And whether we agree or approve of John 14 is really irrelevant.
Perhaps this inspires Jesus’ plea in the opening verse on John 14 when he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me.” What’s Jesus saying here? Is he saying, “ I need you to initial here, here and here indicating that you agree with everything I’ve commanded you to do.”
Or could it be Jesus simply saying, “Trust in God, Trust also in me.” More than agreement or approval, Jesus wants our trust. And if we desire a relationship of any consequence and depth, Jesus needs our trust. For developing trust involves a challenging process that goes far beyond achieving consensus or approval.
For trust creates in us an assured reliance on the character, ability, and strength of someone or something. Trust produces in us a firm confidence in that something or someone. Trust stirs in us a steady hope that something is true and a hardy expectation that someone will act.And for those who trust and believe that someone is Jesus Christ, and that something is Christ’s love.
You see it’s not that Peter’s argument was not absent of agreement, but even worse it was void of trust. And this is what makes Jesus so upset and compels him to issue a warning to those who would be ashamed of him rather than trust him.
Ultimately, the remedy for the ails of both the world and the church will not be secured by achieving universal agreement between nations and denominations, but by developing cosmic trust in the One who not only created the world, but whose love makes it spin. So this morning the question Jesus puts before us all is not, “ Do you agree with me?” What Jesus really wants to know is, “ Do you trust me?”
