A sermon by The Rev. Gene R. Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on September 13, 2009
Proper 19 -- Isaiah 50: 4 – 9; Proper 19 Psalm 116: 1 – 8; James 2: 1 – 5, 8 – 10, 14 – 18; Mark 8: 27 – 38
Have you ever thought about the bewildering array of choices we have as consumers in our country today?
For example, I was in the grocery store the other day, picking out food for a reception. I wanted some potato chips, and so, as I wandered up and down the aisle, I saw what must have been literally dozens of types of chips. Even the well-known brand names that have been around for awhile now have a large variety of sorts, all carrying the same brand name.
The same can be said about blue jeans, or dungarees….Many of us remember when blue jeans came in one, basic mode. (And, if you’re as old as I am, you couldn’t wear them to school!).
But now, we have a wide variety of blue jeans: carpenter’s jeans (complete with loops to put your hammer into, just like my Danish grandfather used to do), relaxed fit jeans, full cut jeans, flare bottom jeans (see, the 70s have come back, after all!), and, lest we forget, designer jeans (complete with fancy embroidery and an equally fancy price tag!).
Designer jeans.
How about a “designer Messiah” (or, a “designer Christ”, which means the same thing)?
What would I mean by such a term (which, as far as I can tell, is an original one)?
What I mean is, we could have any sort of a Messiah, the Christ, we wanted….why not have a wide variety of concepts of who the Messiah would be, something to suit everyone’s tastes, expectations and needs?
Makes perfect sense to me!
The problem is: having a “designer Messiah” doesn’t make sense to God.
This problem is not a new one. God’s people at the time that Jesus walked this earth had many concepts of who the Messiah would be, too.
Their concepts often matched their tastes, their expectations, their needs, and their particular concepts of just who that person would be, and what they would do once they arrived. Oftentimes, their concepts of who the Messiah would be were grounded in self-centered desires.
God’s reality and their preconceived notions clash in today’s gospel reading, from Mark, chapter eight.
At the heart of the exchange between Jesus, His disciples, and particularly, Peter, is the issue of a “designer Messiah”.
As I ponder Peter’s response to Jesus’ first, open declaration about what the Messiah came to do, that’s the only conclusion I can draw: that Peter had a completely different concept of who the Messiah, the Christ, would be, and it didn’t include going to Jerusalem to suffer, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed.
Well, then, you may ask, what were some of the concepts of who the Messiah, the Christ, would be that were floating around the Jewish community 2,000 years ago?
Though it’s a little hard to enumerate all of them, we can tell with some clarity what some of the main concepts were that circulated among God’s people way back then. They included:
- A prophet like Moses: Many expected the Christ to be a prophet like Moses, who would be mighty in word and in deed. They may have relied on this passage from Deuteronomy 18: 18, which reads, “I will raise up a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.” It is perhaps because of this verse that St. John the Baptist is asked, “Are you the Prophet?” (John 1: 21) Notice also that the idea that Jesus was the Prophet is one of the answers the disciples give in response to Jesus’ question.
- A successor to King David: David ruled the United Kingdom of Judah and Israel for forty years (1000 – 961 BC). His was the glorious time of the greatest extent of economic and military power that God’s people had enjoyed, and his reign was regarded with reverence. Moreover, many looked for the fulfillment of God’s promise that a successor to King David would sit upon the throne forever. (See I Chronicles 17: 24 for an example of this hope.)
- A military ruler: This concept of the Christ is connected, most likely, to the kingly image which is associated with David. Some in Judaism 2,000 years ago may well have hoped that the Messiah would free God’s people from the oppressive rule of the Romans. Indeed, among Jesus immediate, original disciples there was at least one who belonged to the group that advocated a violent overthrow of Roman rule, Simon the Zealot (the Zealots advocated military means to free the Jewish people from the Romans, and it was they who undertook the beginning of the Jewish-Roman War (66 – 72 AD).
- The bringer of peace: Isaiah articulates a vision of a time of peace and prosperity. Here is the vision: “A shoot shall come up from the stump of Jesse (who was David’s father); from his roots a Branch shall bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and or power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord…..The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11: 1 – 2, 6). It was a time when God would dwell with His people. Hear again Isaiah’s prophecy, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (meaning, “God with us”).” Isaiah 7: 14)
So, we can see that people 2,000 years ago had a number of differing ideas about who the Messiah would be, what the Messiah would do.
People today have a similar outlook: Some think that Jesus was just a great man, a great teacher. Others think he came to bring peace. Still others think he was some sort of a miracle-worker. Others think that was the Son of God, “God with us” (Immanuel). These are but some of the possible ways in which Jesus – as the Messiah, the Christ – is regarded today.
And, just as people did 2,000 years ago, people today often base their concepts of Jesus as Messiah on self-centered, self-serving desires….
- Some cannot accept Jesus as “God with us”. Often, those who hold this position cannot understand by rational means that God could actually intervene in human affairs by coming among us in the person of Jesus.
- Others look primarily to Jesus’ parables as examples of excellent, concise teaching. (Yes, it’s true, Jesus was a master storyteller, for His parables merit continued and repeated study to uncover the many layers of meaning and application.)
- Many who hold to the position that Jesus was merely human seem to accept without question that He was some sort of a magician who had the ability to make it appear that He was healing people.
Returning to the text then, what can we say about Jesus’ self-description of who He was?
Notice that Jesus says He will be going to Jerusalem, where He would suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, and that He would be killed, and would rise again after three days.
What is the implication of all of these things?
Simply this, I think: God’s great plan is unfolding. Jesus refers to this in His response to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” In essence, Jesus equates these coming events with God’s plan.
But Jesus also casts these events in the bigger picture of what God has in mind….Hear these words, at the end of chapter eight, “For whoever is ashamed of me and of 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.”
Jesus has eternity in view! He has the end-of-all-things in view! He has the final things of your life, my life, and the world’s existence, in view!
God’s great plan is about to unfold.
God’s great plan carries with it eternal significance for you and for me.
We ought to pause here for a moment and consider all the other possibilities of who the Messiah would be that we enumerated earlier, and realize that all of them – a prophet like Moses, a successor to King David, a military leader, and a bringer of peace – are all temporary, human categories. All are rooted in a particular time in history.
If Jesus were those things, we would be reading about Him in the history books (that is, unless people had forgotten about His work and His teachings). Jesus would share a place in the chronicles of human history with the likes of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Mahatma Gandhi, and others.
But the resurrection changes all that. The resurrection is proof of life after death, just as the crucifixion is proof of the reality – and the finality – of death (nobody got off a Roman cross alive!).
You see, the events that Jesus begins to enunciate today have eternal significance for you and for me.
For, in baptism, we are buried with Christ in His death, and we are raised to new and eternal life in a resurrection like His.
We are marked as Christ’s own forever. Those are the words we say when someone is baptized (see the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 308).
Because of the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection, our sins are washed away, and we become inheritors of the eternal life that Jesus, the Christ, makes a reality with His resurrection. This we accept by faith.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
