WHAT SORT OF MESSIAH?

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." Mark 5:29

One day Jesus and the disciples are walking down the road. He asks them "Who do the people say I am?" The disciples gave Him some of the answers that were floating around. "Some say you are John the Baptist. Others say you are Elijah or one of the prophets come back to life."

Jesus then makes the question real up close and personal. "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" There was probably a moment of silence as they waited for each other to speak. It is Peter - the bold one - who eventually responds, "You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God."

Jesus replies “Well done, you are absolutely right.” (and the way Matthew's gospel tells it He adds that this was something God had revealed to Peter). But then comes an intriguing sting in the tale. Jesus says: "You’re right. But don't you dare tell anyone!" Why?

Why did He tell them not to tell anyone? You would think He would be saying "Spread the word, the Messiah has come." Instead He Jesus them, "Shush... keep it to yourself." It’s something the scholars call the ‘Messianic Secret’.

Here’s one of the reasons. Although the disciples had started to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, they didn't really know what a Messiah was. “The Messiah is coming! The Messiah is coming! The Messiah is coming! Hold on. What’s a Messiah?”

Now according to the Jewish Rabbi's of the time this was how the Messiah thing would work out. The world would get worse and worse, spiraling down into a moral and spiritual vacuum. When things could get no worse God would send Elijah to prepare the way of the Messiah.

Then when God's Messiah arrived he would be a great warrior king with political clout and military might who would physically crush his foes. He would unite the people in a great Armageddon battle against whoever oppressed God's people. Finally he would take his throne in Jerusalem and rule Israel in peace and prosperity. It would be just like the "good old days" when David was king, but better.

You can't blame the disciples for wanting that kind of Messiah. The Romans had occupied the country. Pagan ideas and culture were corrupting the people. Even the high priest was little more than a puppet in the control of a pagan power. The time was ripe for a heroic Warrior Messiah to come and conquer the Romans, and take his place on the throne of David.

But that was not the sort of Messiah that Jesus came to be. If people, especially the people closest to Him, thought He was that sort of Messiah, it could be a disaster. Tell them that the Holy Conqueror prophesied from ancient times had come and they might go form an army and try to draft him as Supreme Commander. Hundreds or thousands could die and Jesus true mission would never be revealed.

So Jesus explains to His disciples God's plan for the Messiah. "The Messiah must go through great suffering. Even the elders and religious authorities will reject Him. He will be killed and in three days rise again."

This was, of course, a contradiction to everything the disciples expected. God's anointed king suffering and dieing? No way Hosea! That was blasphemy. To suggest that God would allow pagan Gentiles to torture, mistreat, and even kill God’s all powerful Messiah was just wrong. It would be like Superman being taken down without the aid of Kryptonite!

So Peter rebuked Jesus. He doesn’t suggest that Jesus was mistaken; Peter rebukes Jesus. Anyone growing up in a traditional Jewish society would be horrified to observe Peter taking such a tone with his teacher. Disciples just didn’t go around rebuking their teachers!

And how does Jesus react? Strongly! He calls Peter a mouthpiece of Satan. He wants Peter to know that, yes, He was the messiah, and good on you Peter for recognizing that, but Jesus wasn’t going to be the sort of Messiah that Peter had been expecting.

The true Messiah’s mission involved suffering and death and resurrection. Peter was making a devilish suggestion in telling Jesus that He had no need to go to the cross. No Cross… no redemption, no forgiveness, no death to be conquered, no resurrection necessary.

Maybe Peter’s problem was that he defined victory in human terms, not in God's terms. Jesus then gives them God's definition of victory. "If any want to be my followers let them take up their cross and follow me." Take up a cross? Only thieves and criminals took up a cross. The Bible says, "Cursed is the one who hangs on a tree." What could Jesus mean?

He continues, "For those who seek to save their life will lose it, yet those who lose their life for me and the Gospel will save it." This contradicted logic. If you want to save your life you should fight and even kill to preserve it. But here Jesus says the way to life is through death. "For what do you gain if you gain the whole world and lose your life?" This was turning everything upside down. It would take the disciples a long time to come to terms with this.

The same applies to us. We are no more enlightened than they were. True life, says Jesus, isn't found in human achievement or personal gain. Neither is it found in political or military power. It is found instead in spiritual power, in relationships with each other and with God, in worship and in service and abandonment to the will of God.

Friends, why do we bother coming to church? I would suggest that one of the reasons we involve our lives in the church, is because we are people who really want to live and really want the best out of life for ourselves and for our families and friends.

It could even be that, like Peter, we have recognized that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the son of living God, but maybe we're not exactly sure what that means or how we should go about telling others. And though we believe that Jesus can give us eternal life, not just life in heaven after death, but abundant life in the here and now… these words, about the cost of following Him, seem difficult and troublesome.

Jesus says, "If you want to follow me you must take up a cross. Because if you try to hold on to life you will lose it, but if you surrender your life for Me and the Gospel you will have true life. After all what good is it to gain the whole world and never really live."

In a "Pain killer culture", trying to understand where suffering fits in with God’s will is a tough cookie. Jesus challenges us to turn our thinking upside down. Through His miracles and works of healing, through His compassion for the crowds and for individuals it is clear that God takes no delight in human suffering.

Mother Teresa, that great missionary to the poor in India, used to instruct her novices, "To truly love, is to fight against evil. You cannot fight without receiving blows. You can not help the suffering without suffering yourself."

In our materialistic, pain fearing world, people love to hear the voice of the miraculous Jesus. Witness the success of those who preach a gospel of instant prosperity or ceaseless blessing. People are not so sure they want to hear the word of the cross. What sort of Messiah would call us to such a thing? The idea is no less shocking now as it was then.

But … listen… just as God’s Messiah wasn’t the sort of Messiah that people expected… maybe abundant life is not about all the things people often think it is. Maybe "the good life" is not being materially well off or even comfortable. Maybe abundant living does not depend on being in good health or even on good terms with everyone.

So let us, we who confess Him as Lord in the early years of the twenty first century, ask ourselves, "What sort of Messiah?" The sort that tells us that anything goes and we are not to worry about our sins, or our neighbors, or about injustice or poverty, but simply accept blessing after blessing from His hand? One who says, "Don't worry, be happy... live for ever and ever in a pain free, trouble free world?"

Or are we to hear the voice of one who explained His mission to His disciples in terms that involved undeserved suffering, a cross, a resurrection and a promise of the empowering presence of His Holy Spirit to all who would come after Him. Who spoke of picking up on the pain, the shame and the rejection of others and placing it on our shoulders to help them carry it up a hill towards forgiveness.

One who saw prayer as an opening up of our selves to God's will, rather than as an exercise to persuade God to do things our way. One who spoke of putting our self-interest aside, dieing to ourselves and being prepared to live and die for one another. Do we want to hear the radical voice of a revolutionary Jesus or do we want a Panacea Messiah to solve all the world’s problems and tell us we don't have to get our hands dirty, because it will be all right in the end?

I read the gospels and I am challenged to believe that God's desire for this world is that it be a place of miracles and blessing and healing and hope. But I am also challenged to see that love is not simply an emotion. It is a weapon to destroy all that cheapens and lessens and takes away life.

To enter the fight means not sitting back and letting God take care of everything, but actively wielding the weapon of love, which may mean putting ourselves in situations that can only be traveled through with faith and whose only hope is in the ability of God to turn hopeless situations, like crosses, into places that sing with the joy of resurrection emptied tombs.