Have you ever desired to look or act like someone else? I think we all do it in one way or another as children or in our teenage years. Can you look or act like them if you don’t know what they look or act like? No, of course not. You have to study them before you can be like them. It is the same way with following Jesus. You have to know who Jesus is and what he is like before you can follow him.
All of scripture helps us to understand who Jesus is, but one passage that lays it out very clearly is Mark 8:27-38. In this passage, Mark helps us to answer three questions: Who is Jesus? Why did he come to earth? What does it look like to follow Jesus? These are the questions that I will attempt to answer as I walk through this passage today. For sake of space, I am not going to put it all here, though I will quote portions throughout this post (in ESV). If you haven’t read Mark 8:27-38 recently, go ahead and do so. It will help you to track with the rest of what I am about to say.
Some Quick Context
I want to start with the context of where we find ourselves. In Mark 1, we are introduced to John the Baptist, who comes and announces that the Messiah is coming. Jesus is baptized, tempted, and starts his ministry in Galilee, preaching that “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). He calls is disciples, and immediately begins to heal and preach the gospel. He casts out demons (Mark 1:21-28, 5:1-20), heals all sorts of diseases (Mark 1:29-34, 40-45, 2:1-11, 3:1-6, 5:21-43, 6:53-56, 7:24-30, 7:31-37, 8:22-26), and gathers quite a crowd around him (Mark 3:7-12). He performs miracles that show his power over creation (Mark 4:35-41, 6:45-52). He feeds large crowds (Mark 6:30-44, 8:1-10). In all of this, people are beginning to understand who he is, and there is a growing anticipation that he is at last the long-awaited Messiah.
In the midst of all of this, Jesus begins to have conflict with the religious leaders of the day. They are furious that he forgives sins (Mark 2:7). They try to trap him by asking difficult questions: about fasting (2:18) and the source of his power (3:22ff). They accuse him of violating the Sabbath, but he declares that he Lord of the Sabbath (2:23-3:6). They question him about traditions and commandments (7:1-23). They demand a sign and he refuses to give it them because of their hard hearts (8:11-13). He warns the people of the corrupt “leaven” of the religious leaders (8:14-21)
In Mark 4:1-34, we get some of Jesus’ teaching, in the form of a series of parables. These parables begin to illustrate what the kingdom of God, which Jesus is bringing, looks like. It is not what anyone expected it would look like.
And it is in this context, of a growing awareness of who Jesus is, but still lacking full understanding, that we come to Mark 8:27-38. Through all of the miracles he has performed up to this point, Jesus has commanded the people not to tell anyone who he is. He casts out demons and silences them. I am indebted to Michael Heiser for opening my eyes to understand why Jesus commanded silence. I will try to summarize what Heiser explained the best that I can.
In order for the plan of redemption to work, God needed a human who would be able to resist temptation, obey always, be the perfect king, and reverse death by dying and rising again. This, of course, is only possible if God becomes man. Which, we know, happened in Jesus. But there is a problem with this plan: the forces of darkness can’t discover who the God-man is, or they won’t fall for the plan. Because in order for the forces of darkness to be overcome, they had to kill the man who would overcome them by his resurrection. While we can look back now and see how it was God’s plan all along to have the Messiah suffer and die, we can tell from the reaction of the disciples (which we will dive into in a moment) that this was not generally expected at the time of Jesus’ coming. The forces of evil knew Jesus’ identity as the Son of God and the Holy One (see Mark 1:24). But they didn’t know that his death and (and subsequent resurrection) would reverse the curse that gave them their power.
At his baptism in chapter 1, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God. The demons knew that the Son of God had arrived – now he needed to die. They needed to get this God-man out of the way! But there is this air of secrecy about Jesus and about what his mission fully entails throughout his ministry up until this point in chapter 8. Why the mystery? If the dark forces knew that their killing of Jesus would be the very undoing of their power, would they have killed him? I don’t think that Satan’s forces are stupid.
But when the time was right to provoke them to kill him (or, rather, to inspire the Jewish leaders to have him killed), Jesus made his revelation of who he was and why he was here plain and clear.
And that is where we find ourselves in Mark 8:27. Jesus and his followers are in Caesarea Philippi, which was known as the gateway to hell or the gateway to Satan (due to a variety of Jewish traditions I won’t detail). In Jewish thinking, Jesus was standing at the very entrance into Satan’s realm. And he had a proclamation to make.[1]
Who is Jesus? (Mark 8:27-30)
Standing at the very entrance to the realm of Satan, Jesus asks his disciples a very important question. “Who do the people say that I am?” (Mark 8:27). The disciples respond with the various theories they have heard from the crowd. Elijah? A prophet? John the Baptist come back to life? Then Jesus asks them the most important question, a question that still reverberates down through the generations and is the most important question for each of us as well. “Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29). Peter responds (and we can see from the parallel in Matthew 16:17 that he was correct and commended for his answer) that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.
Who is Jesus? Who do you say that he is? Is he, as some say, a good man? Is he just a prophet? Or will you choose to agree with Peter that Jesus is the Messiah? What you do with Jesus is the most important decision you will ever make. Who you believe him to be will have great and direct impact on how you live your life, as we will explore in a moment.
But in verse 30, Jesus still charges his disciples not to tell anyone about his true identity. Why is that? In the Jewish mind, there was a very particular idea of what the Messiah would be like and what it would mean that he had arrived. I think that we get a clue from the next section of verses that the charge for silence was because the disciples would not have spread an accurate message at this point. They still thought that the Messiah would come and overthrow the Romans, freeing Israel from their human oppressor. They didn’t understand his true mission…not yet. But Jesus was going to reveal it to them.
Why did Jesus Come to Earth? (Mark 8:31-33)
A proper understanding of Jesus’ identity will always lead to a proper understanding of his purpose and his mission. If we believe that Jesus was just a good man, we will believe that his purpose was to come and be kind and teach some helpful things. If we believe that he was a prophet, we may believe that his teaching was inspired by God. But Jesus’ true mission as Messiah was different than anything anyone alive at that time would have expected.
Jesus followed his revelation of himself as the Messiah with teaching about what he came to do. Calling himself the Son of Man (an image loaded with Messianic hopes from Daniel 9), Jesus tells his disciples that he must “suffer many things and be rejected by the elders…and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31). I love the note that Mark adds in verse 32 that “he said this plainly.” In other words, they can’t miss what he is saying. His mission is not to overthrow the Romans, his mission is to suffer, die, and rise again on the third day.
We can see from Peter’s response here that this was not at all what the Jews were expecting from their Messiah. Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him for teaching such things. Even after his great confession of the identity of Jesus, he still doesn’t understand what it really means that Jesus is the Messiah.
Jesus in turn rebukes Peter. “Get behind me Satan!” (Mark 8:33). Such strong language is necessary because Peter is not listening and submitting to the plan of God, but is trying to take matters into his own hands, to make Jesus into the image of Messiah that he has in his head, rather than acknowledging the perfect, though mysterious, plans of God.
You see, what we believe about Jesus’ identity shapes greatly what we believe about his purpose. His identity is truly wrapped up in his mission. And it is only once we understand his mission that we can understand what it looks like to follow him.
What Does it Look Like to Follow Jesus? (Mark 8:34-38)
Because the Messiah, Jesus, will suffer, it is only natural that his followers will have to suffer as well. Those who desire to be Jesus’ disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Jesus (Mark 8:34). There will be suffering for those who desire to follow their suffering king. God’s kingdom is upside down – those who desire to save their lives will lose their lives, but those who willingly give up their life for the sake of the gospel and the sake of Christ will truly save it (Mark 8:35). It does no good to gain everything in this world and give up one’s soul (Mark 8:36-37). Whoever is ashamed of Jesus and of his mission of suffering will ultimately face the shame of being rejected by the Son of Man (Mark 8:38).
Following Jesus means that we will look like him. It means that we will suffer as he suffered and that we will be called on to give up certain things in this life so that we can enter the kingdom of God and sense his pleasure.
The Rest of the Story
Mark goes on to tell of Jesus’ transfiguration – when he displays his glory to the disciples. This takes place, again, right at the Gateway to Satan’s Realm, Caesarea Philippi. Michael Hieser says it is as if Jesus is saying, “Come and get me” to Satan and his forces. He then begins the trek to Jerusalem in the rest of chapter nine, along the way explaining more about his mission and what it looks like to follow him. In chapter 11, he makes a glorious, triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He stirs up more conflict between himself and the religious leaders, in this way provoking and bringing about his death, which is the very crux of the plan of God. In chapter 14 he is arrested, in chapter 15 he is killed, and in chapter 16 he rises again after three days – just as he foretold. If what Jesus told them would happen actually did take place, then it follows that his disciples ought to follow him in the way that he told them to.
The implications still hold true for us today: If Jesus is who he said he is…then we are called to live in a particular way as we seek to follow him. We are also to take up our cross daily, to deny ourselves, to be willing to suffer, and to proclaim his upside-down kingdom through the whole world as we follow our suffering Messiah-King.
[1] Heiser, Michael. Supernatural. Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2015. Kindle ed. pp. 97-163.
That part from Heiser about silence was really helpful. Thanks! 🙂