Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

September 16, 2018 

Readings:

First Reading: Isaiah 50: 4c-9a

Psalm: 116

Second Reading: James 2: 14-18

Gospel reading according to Mark 8: 27-35

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Homily:

Jesus, this time, brought along with him his disciples to have a private conversation with them.  It was something personal to him to know. While walking out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi, situated 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee and at the base of Mt. Hermon, the land of many pagans where different religions can be freely exercised, he asked his chosen disciples about himself. “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’.” (Mk. 8: 27-28).  He asked them, “Who do people say that I am?”  He wanted to know how people knew him very well.  Did they get from his preaching his being and essence as one sent by God or just an ordinary human person?  Did they understand who he was?  But the answers he received from his disciples were far from what he was expecting.  They did not yet know who Jesus was.  The people said from whom they heard King Herod said that he was John the Baptist whom he killed during his birthday but raised up from the dead. Other people said he was Elijah, one of the greatest prophets of old, who was promised that he will return in the proper time.  Other people said a someone unknown prophet. 

To know also if these chosen disciples knew him already or they have someone else also in their mind, “And he asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’  Peter said to him in reply, ‘You are the Christ’.” (Mk. 8: 29).  Maybe there was silence (but not too long paused); each one of them was thinking who Jesus was to himself; and since nobody would like to give a wrong impression they also waiting each other who will answer first among themselves this question of Jesus.  “But who do you say that I am?”  This question of Jesus to his disciples can be asked also to us who have faith and belief in him. Who is Jesus in our life?  Maybe we can answer, He is my Savior and Redeemer, my Liberator, my personal companion, my Lord and my God, my Creator, my brother and friend, whom I love, my Love, my all, and many other answers and expressions.  But Peter has given the deepest knowledge and understanding about who Jesus was, “You are the Christ,” for it came from God the Father.

When Jesus heard this answer from Peter, he became anxious and precautious.  He became uneasy. So he warned his disciples.  “Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him” (Mk. 8: 30).  Nobody should/must know who he really was. They must hide the true identity of Jesus.  For the meantime it waas okay for the people to believe that he was John the Baptist who rose from the dead, anyway he looked like his cousin John, or the prophet Elijah, or another insignificant prophet. 

But for his twelve disciples he explained what or who is a Christ, the Anointed One.  “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” (Mk. 8: 31). He is ready to suffer on the hands of the elders, the chief priests and scribes for the sake of many, as what Isaiah prophesied about the Suffering Servant, “The Lord God opens my ear that I may hear and I have not rebelled, have not turned back.  I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plunked my beard, my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting . . .” (from the first reading, Is. 50: 4c-6).  More worse is that he was sold by his disciple, denied by his friend, while beaten down to the ground, scourged all over his body, ridiculed by putting crown of thorns on his head, lampooned by his own people in front of the Roman procurator, carrying wooden cross, and crucified on his cross like a criminal, and died, for the salvation of many, but on the third day he rose again..    

As if Jesus was ready to die, he spoke regularly and naturally, as if it is very easy for him the prophecy.  He can say it over and over, he repeated it casually and without fear.  “He spoke this openly.  Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him” (Mk. 8:32).  Maybe Peter, as chosen leader of the group, cannot bear any longer what Jesus was repeatedly saying about the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of Man, that’s why he took Jesus at one side away from the other disciples and rebuked him.  As if, he was saying to Jesus, that it will not happen to him.

Jesus recognized what Peter wanted to say and do, to keep him away from the plan of God the Father.  He cannot imagine that Peter can deviate from the will of God and do the interest of Satan and of men.   “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’.” (Mk. 8: 33).  He turned around and looked at the other eleven disciples, for maybe they have the same thought as what Peter said and did to him, and at their presence he scolded Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Instead of obeying God to offer his will by sacrificing himself as ransom for many, Peter wanted to save his life by disobeying God’s will and plan, for Jesus Christ, and the world but rather obey the promptings of men.

This time, he revealed to his chosen disciples and the crowd who followed them the meaning of following Jesus, the Christ as well as the meaning of life and death through their selflessness and self-giving for the sake of others. “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’” (Mk. 8: 34-35). He let the disciples and the crowd to decide for themselves. He did not force them to follow him; rather they are free to follow him because they believed in him.  This is his command, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  We who would like to come after him, we must deny, reject, refute and rebuff ourselves; we should disregard ourselves as important but rather lowly and humble servants.  We should carry our crosses of life and of living daily like our Master and Lord. And we should follow Jesus in Calvary where he is to be crucified.  That’s the way of being disciples and followers of Jesus Christ.  As what Jesus said, “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.”  As true disciples of Jesus who set as an example and model to us in serving us by his self-sacrifice and self-giving and self-denial, he died for us.  We too must offer ourselves to others; we must not keep hold of our lives but rather we must ready to die to ourselves so that others may live, for Christ and the Gospel, if we want to save our lives.