Jesus the suffering servant Mark 8vv31-38
No sooner was the vision of the Messiah in the hearts and minds of the disciples than they are brought face to face with the reality of His mission on earth. He goes on to expound that before the glory, when Messiah will reign in glory, He must undergo suffering, such suffering as has never been witnessed. He wasn't speaking to religious teachers who should have known this aspect of Messiah, but to ordinary men whose grasp of scripture was surface at best.
"And He began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed and after three days rise again."
This is the first of three declarations by Jesus in the gospel of Mark of His suffering, and suffering of the most brutal kind that would culminate in His death on a cruel cross. The others are in chapter 9v31 and 10vv33/34. People ask why suffering?....it is because for God to ultimately bless man, He must first deal with his sin, and since that involves the exposure of sin before the cure, God's servant must suffer all that humanity would ever endure. It is all written in the Old Testament in the Torah, in the wisdom books and the prophecies that the Coming one would suffer. From the very beginning God stated that in bruising the head of the serpent, the seed of the woman's heel would be bruised (Genesis 3v15). The unfolding of holy scripture, in the blood sacrifices and the severe suffering of the nation of Israel and the constant predictions of the holy prophets of the suffering of Messiah should have prepared this people for these events, but instead their minds were focused on the glorious power and supremacy that would ensue. They looked for a conqueror Messiah, not a crucified one. Their vision of salvation was freedom from their enemies and unfettered occupation of the promised land; this they will have but first Messiah must deal with their sins, he must repair their defiled hearts, and so He must take upon Himself the sins of the people before they can settle in peace from their enemies; the greatest enemy is within. This was not generally understood in Israel, neither by the disciples. The initial euphoria with the crowds following Him was because they thought the kingdom of God had come to them; indeed the king had come but He must first be rejected and suffer on their behalf. The prophecy of Isaiah, which expounds the elect servant of God, clearly states He will first suffer, and not merely in a physical sense at the hands of evil men, but spiritually from God......Isaiah 53vv3-6 "He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken smitten of God and afflicted; but He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed."
Peter, who confessed that in the face of all the evidence He must be the Messiah, did not fully comprehend...."Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him." He couldn't take on board the idea of a martyred Messiah. Jesus in turn rebuked Peter, perceiving the voice of Satan from lips that had declared Him to be the Christ. The work of Messiah was to obey the will of God, it was Satan the adversary who opposed, as all attempts to contradict the mission of the Saviour of the world or any opposition to the work of God will be. Even believers can become the mouthpiece of Satan. Jesus summarised his error as "the things of men, not the things of God." God will bring to the world His gracious salvation, but in His own prescribed way and any deviation will not be countenanced. Nothing perturbed the Messiah more than public opposition to His work and He turned and looked angrily at His disciples.
Take up the cross and follow me
Then follows the famous discourse on discipleship. In essence Jesus says to them, you want to follow me , you want to share my kingdom, then it must be via the cross. In this present age Messiah must suffer (Amplified version--"must of necessity suffer.") and those who follow Him also. He lays out the issues of discipleship for all:
- The scope of discipleship This is the challenge to all. He calls the disciples and the multitude and lays out the terms for following Him. "Whoever will (desires) to come after me...." There is no neutral ground in relation to the claims of Christ, we are either for Him or against Him. There is no coercion in the matter, it must be our desire to follow Him or not. He does not force His way into our lives, He invites us to follow Him. If, however we choose to do so it must be by the way of the cross.
- The cost of discipleship The cross symbolises an earthly loss, it carries a stigma; To the well educated Greek it was just foolishness, their idea of God was one who was powerful, assertive, higher, better than all, not one who was humble, or allowed weaker beings to suppress. To the religious Jew it was a stumbling block for their expectation was of a warrior king who would suppress enemies and establish their nation. Jesus makes it clear the way to ultimate blessing was via the cross, the suffering ,the shame, before the glory.
- The system of discipleship This involves turning world values on their heads. "Saving life" in the sense of getting as much out of the here and now, in Jesus terms actually means losing life. "Losing life" in the sense of humility and self denial. in Jesus terms means actually saving it, since we live for the next world. This world is nothing because of sin, and anything in it is not worth our attention, let alone our adoration.
- True measure of profit and loss In a world where the gain of material things is everything and time and energy is spent in the pursuit of worldly possessions the challenge goes out from the one who created all, sustains all and who will inherit all....."What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul...?" notice He puts the value of the entire world against the value of one human soul!! It is impossible for anyone to gain the world, and so to lose your soul for a small part of it is even more ridiculous. When you come to the end of life, what will you give in exchange for the soul, since it's value is greater than everything in the world. Jesus is hitting hard, deep into the consciences of all. His mission to the cross was to save the human soul, whose salvation is beyond the currency of men. The prophet Micah (chapter6vv6-7) expressed it like this "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The human soul is priceless and eternal and we can save it or lose it depending on our attitude to Christ.
- The coming glory He has exchanged the cross for the crown, the tree for the throne. He went through the shame of the cross, and now for the glory. Disciples must follow in the same pathway. Am I ashamed of Him now, both of Him and His words? Then He will be ashamed of me in the world to come. Association with Him in the present will bring earthly loss, but eternal gain. He is coming in the glory of the Father with the holy angels. This world will see the blessing of God in Christ, and all associated with Him will share in that glory, but the pattern is unalterable..."the sufferings of Christ and the glory that is to follow."
Note the triumphant climax to those classic old testament predictions of the crucifixion in Psalm 22vv25-31 and Isaiah 53vv11-12. This is God's way, and, if we would be blessed, it will be our way also.
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