Have you ever watched a speed painter at work? In the videos I’ve seen, they’re often up on a stage, working on a huge black canvas. With large brushes loaded with paint, they splash and shape what appears to be an abstract image, and in a few brief minutes, it's done - though it's hard to tell what it's supposed to be. But, then, the final twist - literally! The painter rotates the entire canvas to reveal a totally different image. What had looked like an abstract picture formed from random splashes of paint becomes a stunning portrait once the image is flipped right-side up. That twist at the end changes everything.
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| Photo by clement fusil on Unsplash |
One of the unique characteristics of the Gospel of Mark is what Bible scholars call “the messianic secret” (for a deeper dive, check out this resource). It refers to the scenes where the disciples or others learn something about Jesus - through his self-revelation, or in witnessing the miracles and healings he performs - but then Jesus instructs them not to tell anyone about it. In today’s text, we hear that following Peter’s confession of faith, his bold proclamation “You are the Messiah,” Jesus “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.”
It seems counter-intuitive. Isn’t the whole point to share the good news of God’s coming kingdom? Why would Jesus want them to keep it a secret? It’s because until the end of the story, until the cross, until Jesus’s death and resurrection, the disciples can only see the abstract, upside-down image. If they start describing that painting to others, none of them will understand what the picture is really supposed to look like.
Dr. Mark Allan Powell describes the reasoning this way: "In a nutshell, Mark does not think that any aspect of the Jesus story can be understood apart from the cross. Jesus tells people not to talk about his miracles or his glorious transfiguration because those elements of his biography need to be understood in context, and the proper context for interpreting them does not come until the end of the story, when Jesus dies on the cross."
The cross is the interpretive key for the entire Jesus story. Without that piece of the puzzle, it’s easy to misinterpret Jesus’ purpose. We catch a glimpse of this in the exchange between Jesus and Peter in today’s reading. Peter correctly declares that Jesus is the Messiah. It’s true! Jesus is the anointed one who has come to proclaim and heal and save. And yet, without the interpretive context of Jesus’s death and resurrection, the image of the Messiah that Peter has in mind doesn’t match up.
How could Jesus be talking about a Messiah who undergoes great suffering, and is rejected by the religious leaders, and is killed?! No, no - the vision Peter has is of a strong leader, someone who will come out on top. A leader characterized by might, power, vindication, knocking the Roman occupiers down a few pegs - you know, regular Messiah stuff. All the things he’s read about in the words of the prophets.
Unsettled by what Jesus has described, Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. I imagine him blustering, struck by disbelief and confusion and anger - surely you can’t mean that, Jesus. What am I missing?!
The great thing about Peter - and by great, I mean challenging - is that he so often gives us a way to see ourselves in the Gospel stories. Like Peter, we so often set our minds on human things, rather than divine things. Like Peter, we, too, have our own ideas about what following Jesus ought to look like, and for sure the desired path does not include suffering, rejection, and death. Instead, we prefer to imagine that life should be somehow easier for us, you know, because of our faithfulness. And we hope that we can pray hard enough that we and the people we love are spared from heartache, pain, and loss. We might imagine that God wants us to be wealthy, or successful, or free from the burdens and cares of life.
But, as hard as it is to stomach, and as much as we wish it were different, that’s not how following Jesus works. Our faithfulness doesn’t earn us special perks or an exemption from suffering and difficulty. Instead, God’s faithfulness assures us that we are not alone. Whatever comes, Jesus walks ahead of us, leading us through the pain of death to the joy and victory of resurrection.
Indeed, the kingdom of God is upside-down and backwards from how the word usually works. We hear that those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their lives for the sake of the gospel will save it. We hear that the first are last, and the last are first. That the poor are filled with good things, and the rich are sent away empty. That a cross, an instrument of torture and shame and death, is instead revealed to be the way that love and life are made known.
There are no illusions - following Jesus is hard! To deny ourselves, take up our cross, make sacrifices, risk loss and death - all of that is uncomfortable and challenging. And yet we find strength in remembering that we do not journey alone. Together, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we fix our eyes on Jesus as we await the fullness of God’s coming kingdom, which is brought about not by earthly power or might, but by God’s powerful love. That twist at the end? The cross? It changes everything.
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