A 5-day per week study.
February 2– Reading Mark 8:22- 9:1.
Read and believe in Jesus.
And He asked them, “Who do YOU say that I am?” Peter answered Him, “You are the Christ.” Mark 8:29
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The Gospel according to Mark 8:22-39, 9:1
Jesus has been leading His disciples outside Israel proper to give Himself time away from the crowds to teach them. They’ve spent a bit of time to the north and to the east in Decapolis, with a brief boat trip into Galilee to the area of Magdala, where some Pharisees from Jerusalem demanded that He show them a sign to prove His claims.
Then the disciples endured a strong questioning from Jesus about baskets of bread vs the evil of leaven. They were confused.
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Vss. 22-26.
Now they are back in Bethsaida in upper Galilee. Immediately, some people brought a blind man to Him and begged that He heal him. Jesus took the man to a private place. He spat, then touched the man’s eyes.
“Do you see anything?” Jesus asked him.
“I see men, but they look like trees walking around.”
Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and when the man opened his eyes, his sight was restored clearly.
“Do not even enter the village,” Jesus commanded the former blind man.
And he apparently obeyed!
NOTE: So why did it take two touches of Jesus’ hands to completely heal the man’s sight? Lack of faith? A way to avoid the shock of instant sight? Two kinds of diseases? To spend more time with the man?
Mark just reports this incident; he says nothing about how it happened.
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Vss. 27-30.
Jesus again leads the disciples out of Israel, way north into the foothills of Mount Hermon, to the villages of Caesarea Phillippi. (This is not the coastal city of Caesarea.) On the way, Jesus asked them a question.
“Who do people say that I am?”
They told Him about the speculations they’d heard.
“Some say, John the Baptist.”
“Others say, Elijah.”
‘Others, one of the prophets.”
(It’s interesting that all these people were dead and would have to be reincarnated to be Jesus now.)
“But who do YOU say that I am?” Jesus asked.
And Peter answered, “You are the Christ.” (Messiah)
Perhaps Jesus nodded and looked around at the others. Then He told them, in no uncertain terms, not to tell this to anyone.
NOTE: This was not the time or place to “announce” Him. The people might rush Him and demand that He set up the kingdom right now, as they had wanted to do after He fed the 5,000. Later, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, He would THEN charge them to tell this to the whole world.
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Vss. 31-33
Now comes the hard part: the truths about Jesus that the disciples would not want to hear, and had not expected to hear from the long-awaited Messiah of Israel.
Jesus began to teach them clearly: “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.”
What a shocker! Had they heard correctly? Suffer and die? Wasn’t the Christ, the Messiah, supposed to set up His kingdom and throw out the Romans? This couldn’t be! Was Jesus testing them in some way?
Peter took Jesus aside and, expressing the thoughts of all of them, rebuked Him.
(Matthew records Peter saying to Jesus, “God forbid it, Lord! That must never happen to you!”)
Jesus, seeing the other disciples watching and agreeing, said harshly, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man!”
Whoa!
Did Peter’s mouth drop open? Did he step back a pace?
(NOTE: Jesus did not believe that Peter WAS Satan, but he was being used by Satan to once again tempt Jesus away from the cross. Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross was God’s plan, and whoever opposed it was doing Satan’s work, even if they didn’t realize it.)
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Vss. 34-39, 9:1.
It must have been quiet for a while as they walked. As they neared the villages, the crowds once again flocked to Jesus. Jesus’ mind must still have been on His future horrific work on Golgotha, for He spoke to (taught) both His disciples AND the crowds these hard things….
“If anyone 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, but 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 soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?
“For whoever is ashamed of Me and 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.”
“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death, until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
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Did Jesus’ words confuse the disciples and the crowd?
Were His followers required then to also suffer and die with Him?
And then, had He stated the opposite? He WOULD set up His kingdom in their lifetime.
This crowd, including the disciples, was definitely quiet and thoughtful after these words.
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Jesus would be in the villages for six days, perhaps teaching and healing, but then he would take His disciples, especially the three closest to Him, up Mount Hermon for a mountain-top experience they would never forget.
Next time.
Morning Meditations 