The disciples of Jesus must have undergone quite the emotional rollercoaster traveling the countryside with Jesus. There were moments of great joy and celebration, profound moments of teaching and unimaginable miracles. At the same time there are those moments, like we see in the Gospel for this twenty-fourth Sunday of the year, when all of their excitement takes a more somber note.
At what is virtually the midpoint of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus checks to see what the disciples might have learned so far. After asking the disciples about what the crowds are saying about him, he asks them the direct question, “But who do you say that I am?”
It is Peter who presents the correct answer: “You are the Christ.”
As we shall see, however; Peter gets the right answer but doesn’t really understand what it means. He has the first level of an insight, but has not apprehended the implications to follow.
Nothing that we have seen in the Gospel to this point, and likely nothing that the disciples had experienced in their time spent with Jesus to this point in the Gospel, prepared them for the message that Jesus has for them today: “He 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.”
It is now when Peter shows his failure to understand as he took Jesus aside and rebuked him. On one level we can see the intimacy of the relationship between Jesus and Peter as Peter shows the confidence to be able to attempt to rebuke Jesus. On the other hand, we can see what Mark has been hinting at throughout the Gospel, that the disciples just don’t really understand who Jesus is.
Trying to grasp the meaning of the cross is not easy. It is not something that is easy when we think of Jesus and it certainly isn’t easy when we think of the various crosses which we all bear in our own lives.
Through the course of the ministry of Jesus to this point in the Gospel we have seen him perform numerous miracles of healing. It almost seems that Jesus’ mission is to save us from suffering. The disciples seem to be poised to enter Jerusalem with Jesus and to take the city by storm.
Instead Jesus transforms the meaning of our suffering by taking it upon himself, sanctifying it, and then challenging us to take it up again.
Our cross is his cross, and his cross is also our cross.
We have to be ever mindful in our journey in faith with Jesus that it is the Via Dolorosa that we walk with Jesus. We must be willing to give everything – everything – for the sake of the Gospel. We must never fail to see the cross when we think of Jesus, nor should we expect that our lives will be absent of suffering because of our commitment to the Gospel.
Dr. Garry Koch teaches at Christian Brothers Academy, Lincroft.
