Word to the Wise
Thursday, February 16, 2023 - Thursday in the 6th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 9:1-13 and Mark 8:27-33][Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He said this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." {Mark]
There is no "Thou are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church..." in the Gospel According to Mark. There is a blunt warning to the disciples that they have to think about Jesus in a new way - God's way! One can't blame the disciples for recoiling at the idea that their beloved teacher would be killed at the instigation of the Jewish religious leadership, and the notion that he would rise again just wasn't on the table of their mentality. But that is the message of the Gospel According to Mark. The real identity of Jesus ["But who do you say that I am?"] would be revealed only by his death and resurrection.
In reading the gospels, one is always confronted with the difference between the teaching/healing Jesus and the body on the cross, but the "difference" is our difference, not God's difference. Jesus' life, death and resurrection are all of one piece. We may separate them out in our own thinking for meditation and consideration, but their unity is a constant challenge to us to "think as God thinks" and not as how we would wish. We cannot have a Jesus of our own designs. Peter and the disciples had to learn that lesson, and so do we! AMEN