The Mystery of Christ

The Mystery of Jesus

Gospel
Mk 8:27-35

Jesus and his disciples set out
for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that I am?”
They said in reply,
“John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others one of the prophets.”
And he asked them,
“But who do you say that I am?”
Peter said to him in reply,
“You are the Christ.”
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.

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.
He spoke this openly.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples,
rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it.”

St Martin Sermon

“The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously”

So Fr Tony has gone, after nearly 7 years as parish priest here at St Martin. During his time here there was a notice in the porch which has gone with him. It told all who read it that the parish priest here was a member of SSC – The Society of the Holy Cross. This is a society founded in Soho, London in 1855 by Fr Charles Lowder and 5 other priests of the Church of England. Its membership today comprises bishops and priests who desire to bear witness to the Cross of Christ in their vocation and ministry within the church and their whole lives.

Tomorrow will be Holy Cross Day or the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. Early in the 4^th century, when the persecution of Christians in the Holy Roman Empire came to an end, Helena (mother of the Emperor) was a Christian. At the time she was visiting the Holy Land and excavations uncovered a cross, claimed to be that of our Lord. She sponsored the building of a basilica on the site and it was dedicated on 14^th September 335.

In today’s gospel we heard the familiar story of how the apostle Peter first confessed Jesus ‘the Christ’ at Caesarea Philippi but went on to object when Jesus explained that his mission meant that “he was destined to suffer grievously”. Peter’s inability to get his head round this cut no ice with Jesus who goes on to tell him unequivocally “This is God’s way and, what is more, you and anyone else, now or in the future, who wants to be a disciple of mine will have to walk the same road. Your salvation will also involve renouncing self, taking up your cross, and losing your life for my sake and the gospel”.

So many contemporary Christians are no more able to stomach this than Peter initially could. I don’t know about you but I reckon that our Lord made it abundantly plain that following him wwould involve more than admiring a good man and living a good life. His invitation is not so much to become respectable as to become a revolutionary. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed at the end of the war for his part in the plot to murder Hitler, wrote in his little book “The Cost of Discipleship” – “when Jesus calls he bids us come and die”.

We each have to make up our mind about Jesus: “Who do you say I am?” If we conclude with Peter, and countless others down the centuries, “You are the Christ” then we must also accept his call to follow him totally, all the way. We cannot stick at “he went about doing good”. We have to go on to “he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, and the third day he rose again” and his challenge to embrace “costly discipleship” of the cross shaped variety. Whenever Jesus is taken seriously he challenges us to the core to commit ourselves unreservedly to a contemporary crusade against spiritual tepidness, moral mediocrity, and every form of evil in our lives, our church, and our world.

In the words of the collect for tomorrow:

Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessèd Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace:
grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ
that we may gladly suffer for his sake;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.