Suffer Like the Christ (Mark #28)

Two weeks ago the Super Bowl took place, and my Kansas City-loving son — sitting right over there in his Chiefs sweatshirt — is still mourning the loss to Tampa Bay.

The quarterback for Tampa Bay was Tom Brady. Even if you’re not a football fan you probably know the name.

He was the quarterback in New England for twenty seasons. In those twenty seasons he led them to the Super Bowl nine times — nearly every other year. And of those nine appearances, they won six.

Then at forty-three, with a new team, he reached his tenth Super Bowl — more than anyone has ever appeared in — and won it. His seventh.

The closest comparisons are entire franchises with six wins. He has seven as an individual.

Which is why plenty of people have spent the last two weeks calling him the GOAT — the greatest of all time.

A Ridiculous Scenario

I’m not here to litigate whether he actually is. Some of you feel strongly. Some of you dislike him intensely for various controversies. My son thinks someone else holds the title. Maybe you’re an old-timer with a different name entirely.

Instead, let me propose a scenario.

Imagine that twenty-one years ago, graduating from college — where, incidentally, he was drafted in the seventh round, the 199th pick, considered the greatest steal in draft history — he announces he’s skipping professional football entirely.

Because he’s already the greatest.

He explains that if he played, he’d win seven championships and appear in ten, leading his team to the title game nearly every other year. Nobody else has won more than four. He’s the greatest there ever was — so he’s going to take that greatness straight into coaching.

People would say: first, you’re being remarkably arrogant. Second, you weren’t that impressive in college — you’re a seventh-round pick. And third, if you really are the greatest, you have to step onto the field and prove it.

The greatest doesn’t merely claim it and walk away. He has to go out and demonstrate it.

Today the True Greatest Says Something Crazier

The Jewish people of Jesus’s day had been longing for the Messiah. He had been prophesied throughout what they knew as the Hebrew Scriptures, and as they studied, a picture formed of what he would be like.

And some of Jesus’s disciples watched what he did and heard what he taught and concluded: this is him. This is the Christ.

And it is at that exact moment — the moment they identify him — that Jesus says something more startling than any athlete announcing an early retirement.

The Pop Quiz

Mark 8:27–30. Jesus and his disciples are on the road to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and along the way he asks: Who do people say that I am?

They answer: some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah. Others, one of the prophets.

Then: But who do you say that I am?

And Peter answers immediately: You are the Christ.

And Jesus strictly charges them to tell no one.

Why Those Guesses?

Some thought he was John the Baptist raised — we saw in chapter 6 that after Herod had John beheaded and then began hearing about Jesus, that was his own conclusion.

Others said Elijah, because Malachi prophesies that Elijah would appear before the Messiah — and some of Jesus’s miracles resembled Elijah’s ministry. Perhaps this was the forerunner.

Others simply said he was a prophet in the line of Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel.

Honestly, none of that should surprise us. We’ve been in Mark for a year now, and from the beginning Mark has been building the case that Jesus is King.

It started in chapter 1 with the first words we hear from Jesus: repent and believe, for the kingdom of God is at hand. He is the King of that kingdom.

And because he’s King, he has authority, wisdom, and power. We’ve watched him exercise authority over demons. Over death — he raised a little girl. We’ve watched him heal, still a storm with a word, feed five thousand, and then four thousand. Add to that the wisdom of his teaching about sin, God, and life.

There is no one like him.

“The Christ”

The word Christ means anointed one. When a king was crowned, he was anointed with oil.

So when Jewish people spoke of the coming Messiah as the Christ, that was king language — a King of kings, a divine king coming to set everything right. There would be no one like him.

And Jesus doesn’t correct Peter. He doesn’t deflect or call it flattering. He accepts the title.

But he also doesn’t say, “Excellent — now go tell everyone.” He says say nothing yet.

Eventually he absolutely will send them out to preach — in the Great Commission he says plainly to go and make disciples. But not now. Because Jesus is still working to help these men understand what the Christ actually does.

Still — imagine the moment for Peter. The teacher asked a pop quiz question and he nailed it. He’s feeling good.

He got the word right and had entirely the wrong person in mind.

“Must”

Verse 31: Jesus begins teaching them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

(“Son of Man” was Jesus’s own preferred title for himself, drawn from Daniel — a messianic title.)

And I love that Mark adds: he said this plainly. No hedging. No stammering. No softening.

But notice the verb. He doesn’t say I will suffer. He says I must.

Why must he?

The Broken Lamp

I recently ordered a lamp. It arrived with the glass shade completely shattered, so I had to repackage it and send it back. And it got me thinking.

Imagine I’m at your house — or in your dorm room — and in a foolish moment I throw a rubber ball. Maybe I’m playing with your kid, or your dog, or just being silly. It bounces off the wall, strikes your lamp, and the lamp shatters on the floor.

I feel terrible, so I immediately offer to replace it.

And because you’re gracious, you say, “Don’t worry about it. It was an accident. It’s just a lamp.”

And I insist — you need that lamp, you’ve got finals, you need to be able to read.

And we have that polite argument. And one of us wins.

And whichever of us wins, that person suffers — because someone is putting out the fifty or a hundred dollars. If I pay it, I suffer, and I deserve to. If you refuse and cover it yourself out of kindness, you suffer instead.

Someone always bears the cost.

What Was Actually Broken

When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they did far more than break God’s lamp.

They broke creation. They broke the image of God within themselves. And in that moment their relationship with God broke.

And the cost of repair was not fifty dollars, or a million, or a billion.

The cost was life.

In the moment they sinned they died spiritually — the image of God that gave them true life was fractured, and they were separated from him. And if they paid the full cost and died physically, that separation would become eternal.

But God did not create humanity, place his image in us, and then shrug at eternal separation. God wants humans in relationship with him. He is their life.

So he came to restore us. And the only path was for God himself to pay the cost.

That is why Jesus took on human flesh and lived a sinless life — meaning he broke nothing of God’s — and then went to a cross as though he had broken everything. God absorbed the cost so we could be forgiven, brought back into relationship, and have that broken image repaired, so we could go and love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.

That is why the Son of Man must suffer.

Two Definitions of Greatness

Jesus’s definition of greatness is not a king enthroned and demanding service. It’s a king who comes to give his life and serve — so people can be restored to God.

That is not Peter’s definition.

Verse 32: Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. And turning and seeing his disciples, Jesus rebukes Peter: Get behind me, Satan. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

Consider the audacity. Peter takes hold of the man who stood up in a boat and silenced wind and waves with a word — and pulls him aside for a correction.

But Peter knows. He just answered correctly. And he knows what the Christ is supposed to look like: the Messiah comes and sets things right — meaning overthrowing Rome, re-establishing Israel as a sovereign nation, with Jesus on the throne and the disciples as his cabinet and high court.

So: No, Jesus. You’re not going to die. You’re the one doing the conquering.

“Get Behind Me, Satan”

If you start calling your friends Satan, the friendship likely won’t last. So what’s happening?

A word on Satan. In national polling, roughly eighty or ninety percent of Americans say they believe in God — but far fewer, closer to half, say they believe in Satan. We don’t care for the idea.

I’ll tell you where I stand: I believe Satan is a genuine spiritual being, because Jesus speaks of him as one. And if Jesus can die and rise three days later, I’m going with him. You may disagree, and that’s all right.

But Jesus isn’t saying Peter has become Satan. He’s saying Peter is playing the role — advancing what the enemy would want.

Because Satan is anti-God. If God says paint the wall white, Satan splatters it black. If God says go left, Satan whispers go right. If God creates life, Satan tries to destroy it.

So when Peter says you will not die, he is standing against the plan of God established from the beginning.

And in Peter’s defense — in Acts 2 he stands up, preaches, and the church grows overnight from roughly a hundred and twenty people to over three thousand. He gets in line with God’s plan eventually. In this moment he simply has the wrong definition of the Christ.

And notice the phrase: get behind me. Meaning: get out of my way. I know where I’m going. The road leads to Jerusalem, where I will be falsely arrested, falsely tried, and killed on a cross for your sins. This is the plan. I must suffer and die.

They Were Afraid to Ask

In Mark 9:30 we see this continue. Passing through Galilee — the region where he grew up — Jesus deliberately wants to stay unnoticed, because he’s teaching his disciples that the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men and killed, and after three days rise.

And Mark tells us: they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.

This sounds like nonsense to them. The King they’ve identified as the Christ says he’ll be killed and rise again three days later.

If you follow Jesus today, you stand on this side of the cross. You can look back at Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22 — passages describing the Messiah rejected, despised, scorned, beaten, and killed — and recognize them immediately.

But these men had been taught passages like Isaiah 61 and Psalm 2, which describe the mighty acts of the Anointed One. And everything they’d witnessed lined up with those. So they pictured a conquering warrior.

A conquering warrior announcing his own execution doesn’t fit. And besides — speak up and you might get called Satan. So they stay quiet and confused.

And Then Something Crazier

Back in Mark 8:34, Jesus calls the crowd to him along with his disciples. Notice that — he isn’t teaching twelve men privately anymore. Everyone, come here. I want you to hear this.

Remember who’s in that crowd. People who watched the miracles. People who ate the bread. People increasingly convinced he’s the Anointed One who will set everything right — and who figure that being close to him now means a place in the inner court later.

And he says: if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? What can a man give in return for his soul?

He has just told them he must suffer and die. And now: if you want to follow me, you’ll have to be like me.

You are not the Christ, so there’s no cross for you to die on for anyone’s sins. Only he could do that. But metaphorically, you take up yours.

The Word Behind “Life”

Mark chose a specific Greek word here — psychē, the root of our word psychology.

It can mean physical life, but it often carried a deeper sense: the kind of life you have, who you are at the core. Notice Jesus also uses the word “soul” in this passage.

What he’s talking about is your identity. Where you find your life.

Many people find it in family. I could tell you I’m a husband and a father. Others find it in work — for me, that would be pastor. Others in hobbies: I swim, so I’m a swimmer. I enjoy baseball and football and wrestling, so I’m a sports fan.

All of us anchor our identity in things — and most of those things are genuinely good.

The warning is that we take good things and make them ultimate things. And that’s dangerous, because every one of them can change.

What If It’s Taken?

In a moment of tragedy I could lose my wife and children — and I’d no longer be a husband or a father.

Our elder team could decide they’ve had enough of me — and I’d no longer be a pastor. (They wouldn’t. But they could.)

Last night we had the state high school wrestling tournament on, and our local team had five wrestlers in the finals and won the team title. So my youngest son decided we should wrestle. And there on the floor, mid-scramble, my shoulder popped and I had to call it.

Suppose that injury had been severe enough that I could never swim again. I’m no longer a swimmer.

Suppose I went blind. I could no longer watch a game — and the identity of being an avid sports fan is gone.

If I build my life on those things and they’re taken, who am I? It produces an identity crisis.

That’s precisely the warning. What does it profit you to gain the whole world — to locate your identity in all of it — and lose your very soul? Because every one of those things can be taken.

Put It Somewhere It Can’t Be Taken

So Jesus invites you to place your identity in him and in the gospel.

Because when your identity is there, you become a child of God — and nothing that happens can strip that away.

When your spouse dies before you, you are still a child of God. When you lose the job, still a child of God. When the finances collapse, still a child of God. When the health crisis arrives, still a child of God.

And when you breathe your last, you are still a child of God.

So when someone asks who you are, the first answer is not your major. Not your job title. Not your family. Not what’s in the bank, or the car you drive, or the music you listen to, or the clothes you wear. Not your reputation. Not your addiction. Not what your parents said about you as a child. Not what that adult did to you.

None of that is your identity. Your identity is in Jesus Christ alone.

All of us want to experience life. Jesus is saying those things will let you down. You will only find true life in him.

So How Do You Actually Do This?

It’s one thing to hear it. It’s another to live it. Here’s where to start.

First, take inventory. Be honest with yourself and ask: what, if taken away, would make me feel like I had lost my life?

Is there a specific relationship whose loss would feel like the end? Is it your job? Is it an addiction you’ve kept hidden — something that, if removed, would make everything collapse? Is it something from your past?

Identify it honestly.

Second, pray and surrender it. Jesus said deny yourself. Take those things and place them on your metaphorical cross, so they can be crucified and purified.

Some of them genuinely need to go. But note carefully: if you’ve made your marriage into your ultimate thing, this does not mean get a divorce. It means get a proper perspective.

For some, it may mean changing jobs. If your work has become the ultimate thing about you, either your perspective changes or the job does.

Third, study the gospel. Jesus said to lose your life for his sake and the gospel’s — so you have to know it.

We don’t believe the gospel is merely the beginning of the Christian life. As one pastor put it, it isn’t the ABCs of the faith — it’s the A to Z.

So get into the Scriptures. If you don’t know where to begin, start with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. They’re called the Gospels for a reason — they show you the life of Jesus. Watch how he lived. Watch how he loved.

And fourth, if you need help working through it, get a good book alongside your Bible and let someone walk you deeper into what the gospel actually means for daily life.

The Greatest Had to Take the Field

Peter was right. Jesus is the Christ. The Anointed One. The King of kings.

He simply had the wrong idea of what that King came to do.

Because the true greatest of all time didn’t claim the title and walk away. He stepped onto the field. He went to Jerusalem. He suffered, was rejected, and was killed — and rose again three days later.

And then he turned to a crowd of people hoping to ride his coattails into power and said: if you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and come.

Father, don’t let us come to your word trying to bend it around our biases. Change us instead. Some of what we heard today is hard, and some of us don’t want to wrestle with it. So work in us — help us find our identity nowhere but in your Son, so that whatever else is taken from us, we remain your children. In Jesus’s name, amen.