Lent 2 - Faith in What? Mark 8:31-38 & Romans 4:13-25

On our recent Sabbatical, our family went to Hokitika to visit my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

It is also the place I was born, so technically I think that makes me a West Coaster.

Anyway – when we were there, we visited this beautiful spot by Lake Mahinapua, called the Treetop Walk.

It is stunning.

We found ourselves walking 20 metres off the ground along steel platforms with our heads amongst the tops of an ancient Rimu and Kamahi rainforest.

As we walked out on the platform, I didn’t give the engineering a second thought.

But Esther, our 4-year-old stepped out on the platform, walked a few metres, and then turned to me and said – “we would definitely die if we fell off here.” Then she announced it rather loudly to anyone who would listen.

Suddenly I felt a little unnerved.

“I guess we would” I said.

And then I replied, “But we are safe, this is a very strong platform.”

“Yes” Esther mused. “But… if it did break we would definitely die aye Dad?!”

This morbid conversation ensued for a little whole with my four-year-old for a few minutes until I had fully reassured her that we would be fine.

We stepped out and enjoyed the rest of our walk...keeping away from the topic of falling to an untimely and horrific death.

It left me thinking about the simple faith I have put in human engineering.

I assume that someone has thought clearly and carefully about the weight of the steel, the angles of the beams and the tensile strength of the wires.

I put my trust, I might even say, I put my faith in the engineers that planned the project, the builders that made it happen, the beams and the wires that hold it fast.

But I had never considered to pause and question it.

It makes me how many aspects of everyday life that I put my trust or my faith in all manner of people and places.

We put our faith in doctors to diagnose us correctly when we are sick. We put our faith in teachers to care for and educate our children. We put our trust in supermarkets to stock up enough toilet paper so we can buy it all up when covid alert levels change.

We put our trust and faith in many things.

In the season of Lent that we find ourselves in right now, we are invited, like my curious 4-year-old to ask some questions about just what we put our faith in, and more importantly as we will see in today’s readings from Scripture – who we put our ultimate faith in.

So, with this question in mind - let’s turn together to the Gospel passage from today, Mark chapter 8.  

27 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

(Mark 8:27-30)

Here in this passage lies the central question at the heart of Christianity – Who is Jesus?

Mark’s Gospel has already given plenty of examples of people thinking out loud about who Jesus is.

In Mark chapter 1 and 2 we hear of the crowds of people who are amazed by Jesus’ actions and teaching.

In Mark chapter 3 Jesus is accused by the teachers of the law of being a sorcerer in league with the devil.

In Mark 6, when Jesus is in Nazareth, his home-town, he is accused by the locals of being too big for his boots. They have seen him grow up, he is the son of a carpenter and now he is making some big claims.

Then the disciples who have been following Jesus how shown a mix of surprise and confusion at Jesus throughout their encounters with him.

We hear today that people also are saying that Jesus is a prophet, like John the Baptist or Elijah.

And so here amongst all of these opinions Jesus directly asks his disciples = who do you say that I am?

Peter swiftly answers – “You are the Christ.”

The word literally means “the anointed one” and is a Greek version of the Hebrew equivalent Messiah.

The term “anointed one” is used throughout the Old Testament   to refer to people chosen by God for a special task – for example the king of Israel. However by the time of Jesus the term “anointed one” (Messiah/Christ) had come to take on lots of extra meaning as referring to the person that the Jewish people were expectantly waiting for to rescue them – the one whom God would send to deliver Israel from their enemies and establish God’s righteous rule and reign.

Notice – Jesus doesn’t correct Peter. He accepts the designation, the anointed one.

Yet, what happens next I am sure was a surprise for the disciples.

Jesus starts to teach that he must suffer many things. He teaches that he will be rejected, and then killed, and then rise again.

No surprises here for us reading this 2000 years later. We are about to celebrate this event and what it means for us at Easter time.

But to Peter and the disciples this makes no sense.

This is not what the expected Messiah was meant to do.

The Messiah was meant to rescue them, not suffer and die.

Peter pulls Jesus to correct him on his understanding of the role, and then Jesus rebukes Peter saying, “Get behind me Satan!”

Peter has missed the point entirely and needs correcting.

Peter and the disciples have the right answer in terms of who Jesus is – he is the Christ, the Messiah, the one to rescue the people.

They have the right job title.

But they have the wrong job description in their minds.

They think that it will look a certain way – but according to Jesus they have their minds set on the wrong things, they are not seeing the situation correctly. 

So, Jesus then lays it all out for them.

34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 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.”

Here are some of the most difficult invitations from Jesus.

He calls his followers to deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him.

We hear this today and it has a certain cadence in a society in which it is still acceptable to be a Christian.

Perhaps not entirely popular, but certainly acceptable.

Yet, when Jesus first ushered this invitation to his disciples’ there was a literal edge to it. In the early Roman world many Christians were crucified, tortured, killed for sport, and treated with the utmost cruelty.

Jesus knew that to follow him, to be part of the kingdom he was ushering in could mean this for his followers.

This is reality for many people still today around the world who live in societies with less religious freedom and tolerance.

Jesus knows that following him will have a cost.

This verse has been interpreted more than literally too. It also speaks of a broader suffering and loss that disciples of Jesus will experience as they follow Jesus.

Jesus says: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

There is an invitation here of the full and total giving up of ourselves.

Jesus’ invitation is to full and total trust.

To put our faith in him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his beautiful book on Christian community, “Life together” says: “First, the Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone…the Christian no longer lives of himself, by his own claims and his own justification, but by God’s claims and God’s justification…the death and life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside, in God’s word to Him.”[1]

Bonhoeffer beautifully captures the heart of the gospel message – we and this world need to be rescued.

We don’t need good advice, or a religious gloss on our existence to pep us up.

We need rescue.

This only comes through the cross of Jesus, where Jesus takes on the consequences of our sin – death, and then through his resurrection makes new life possible.

Lent is a season where are invited to think about where we look for our salvation, for our hope in life.

I think there are many places we can put our ultimate faith and trust.

We might put our faith in our governments – if only they could do this or that, if only we had the right leader our lives would be wonderful. All of our problems will go away.

Or we might put all of our faith in a particular relationship – if only this would work out then my life will have meaning and purpose and everything will be ok.

There are numerous projects of self-justification, or self-salvation that we might think of.

Yet Jesus here calls those who choose to follow him to give up on these entirely – to let go of them.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Jesus invites his disciples to trust him so fully that they are willing to relinquish trusting and place their faith fully in him. 

FROM THE BIBLICAL SCHOLARS:

“The challenge of Jesus is addressed not merely to the crowd, together with his disciples, but to all who read or hear the gospel. The only way in which one can be a disciple is to follow Jesus. The cost is comprehensive, but so is the reward.”[2] – Morna Hooker

“Following Jesus is, more or less, Mark’s definition of what being a Christian means; and Jesus is not leading us on a pleasant afternoon hike, but on a walk into danger and risk. Or did we suppose that the kingdom of God would mean merely a few minor adjustments in our ordinary lives?”[3] - Tom Wright.

The invitation is to put our faith entirely in Jesus.

This can often be easy to say, but in practice it can of course be a real struggle.

We hear of the struggle of faith in today’s reading from Romans.

To take up your cross and follow Jesus is a daunting task, but so is starting a nation and being a blessing to others when you are 99 years old…

In the reading from Romans today we hear about Abraham:

 “18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told…” (Romans 4:18)

There were so many reasons for Abraham not to trust or have faith. God promised him and Sarah children yet they were way past what they thought was an age to have kids.

God promised that they would be the parents of a huge nation, yet they were wandering nomads, hardly a thriving metropolis.

I am sure that all of God’s promises seemed a long way off when they were first uttered.

Yet in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he commends Abraham as a person of faith.

Was it because Abraham was wonderful?  Not really. In fact, he did some pretty ordinary and even nasty things. He was a pretty regular guy in lost of respects.

What matters most is the object of Abraham’s faith.

The God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” as Paul puts it.

What really matters what we are putting our faith in, the object of our faith.

It isn’t about us drumming up our feelings or some kind of religious performance.

To come back to the example of the treetop walk at the beginning, what mattered most was the quality of that which I put my faith in. The steel beams, wires, and design.

What always matters is the object of our faith.

When it comes to ultimate things, Jesus calls us to put our faith in him, and to follow him.

Like the first disciples, this will involve a cost. Life will change. We will have to give up our own attempts to make things right, our own projects of self-salvation.

During Lent, we night give up lots of things – but at the heart of it all lies Jesus’ invitation to give up ourselves and even more so our own attempts to save ourselves. To instead, put our faith, our ultimate trust in him. Amen.

Psalm 25 exhorts –

“To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust.” (Ps 25:1-2a)

Preached by Joshua - 28/02/2021

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 13.

[2] Hooker, M. D. (1991). The Gospel according to Saint Mark (pp. 199–211). London: Continuum.

[3] Tom Wright, Mark For Everyone