Mark 8:27-38 Someone Special, or Unique?

First Things: Devotions in Mark’s Gospel

Mark 8:27-38  Someone Special, or Unique?

Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” A variety of answers are given. All of these answers indicate that people recognize in Jesus something special. He is wiser, more powerful, more mysterious. The answers they provide sound like guesses. Jesus goes a step further and asks, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, unsurprisingly, the first to answer, says, “You are the Christ.”

“Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. It is an office, or title. It denotes His role and authority before God. The Greek word, from which we get “Christ,” is parallel to the word “Messiah,” which is borrowed from the Hebrew language of the Old Testament. Both these words mean that Jesus is anointed as the official representative of God to fulfill His promises to His people. He is authorized to speak God’s words and do God’s works. He is charged to act as an intermediary for God’s people in such a way, that He will bear their sins and lead them to God. He alone can do this. No one else can.

Peter, therefore, gives a very different answer than do other people who seem to be guessing. They say that Jesus is special. Peter says that Jesus is unique. Others say that Jesus is slightly, or significantly better than others. Peter says that Jesus is in a class of His own. As there can be no other God than the one, true God, there can be no other Christ, no other Messiah than this one, this Jesus.

We admire Peter’s perception, then, when he makes this great statement. And we regret his next move, as the Messiah, the Christ - the official representative of God who lonely speaks God’s truth - as Jesus says that it is a divine necessity and He suffer and die. Peter rebukes Jesus. Yes, that’s right, Peter, a mere man, rebukes the Christ. And anything, anyone who stands in the way of God’s Anointed must be allied, not with God, but with the devil. And so Jesus rightly says, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

What an amazing statement! As Jesus speaks for God, Jesus now makes clear that Peter is a stand-in, in this moment, with these words, for Satan, the adversary of God. But as abrupt as these words sound, we find that they may have application to our own lives as well, because standing on Satan’s side of the line rather than God’s is also described as “setting your mind on man’s interests as opposed to God’s interests.”

And how often do you and I do that - look at things, evaluate things, choose things, according to man’s interests rather than God’s interests? When I am slighted, do I interpret from God’s perspective, or from the perspective of my own hurt feelings? When I am presented with a potential opportunity, do I evaluate it from my own personal interests (more money? more pleasure?), or from God’s interests?

Jesus lived and responded in each moment with God’s interests in the foreground of His heart and mind. As followers of Jesus, we need to learn to do the same, and the next paragraph shows that this will only happen as we put  into practice “denying self, taking up our cross, and following Jesus.” Peter did well in one moment, and messed up royally in the next. Perhaps we can identify.