Lenten Perspective: The Bad News Within the Good News

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The Bad News Within the Good News

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NRSV)

One I wished, I never played
Oh, what a mess we made
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game

From "Love Is a Losing Game" by Amy Winehouse

One day, Jesus asks the Disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"¹

Peter, one of the Disciples, responds, "You are the Christ."  Christ is another word for Messiah or Anointed One.

This, I think, is an important moment in the Gospel story, not just because it is the moment when one of the Disciples identifies Jesus as the Christ but because it is the point at which Jesus begins to teach the Disciples what it means that He is the Christ.  He orders them not to tell anyone that He is the Christ, and He begins to warn them that, as the Christ, He will have to face rejection, suffering, death, and finally resurrection.

Peter, who has just identified Jesus as the Christ, does not like what he is hearing.  He takes Jesus aside and begins to scold Him.  Jesus then scolds Peter back, saying, "Get behind me, Satan.  You are not thinking God's thoughts but human thoughts."

A recurring theme in the Gospel of Mark is the Messianic Secret.  Jesus does not want people to tell anyone that they think He is the Messiah.  When He heals people, He tells them not to tell anyone what he has done for them.  When He is confronted by people who are demon-possessed, He forbids the demons to speak, because they know who He is.²  My theory is that Jesus does not want people to think that He is the Messiah because people have expectations for the Messiah that Jesus is not going to meet.  The Jewish people are awaiting someone anointed by God to save them from the Roman Empire.  Jesus, on the other hand, has been sent by God to save all of humanity from the power of sin and death.

What Jesus says after correcting Peter is perhaps one of His hardest sayings in the Gospel.  We might think of it as the bad news within the Good News.  Jesus says to the Disciples and to the crowd following Him, "All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.  All who want to save their lives will lose them.  But all who lose their lives because of me and because of the good news will save them."

Peter is following Jesus because He wants to be on the winning team.  Truly following Jesus means following Him on the path of self-denial, death, and resurrection.  Truly following Jesus means taking up a cross of some kind, as He did, and nobody takes up a cross without dying on it in some way.

In Eugene Peterson's translation of the Bible, The Message, Jesus says, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead.  You're not in the driver's seat; I am.  Don't run from suffering; embrace it.  Follow me and I'll show you how.  Self-help is no help at all.  Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self."³

On another occasion, Jesus says, "Not everybody who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will get into the kingdom of heaven.  Only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter."⁴  It is not enough to call Jesus "Lord"; we must live our lives as if Jesus is our Lord.  It is not enough to call Jesus "Savior"; we must follow His example by laying down our lives that we may save them.

The way of Jesus is the way of love, and the life of Jesus shows us that true love is sacrificial.  Love is not about winning.  Love is not about getting what we want.  Love sometimes means suffering.  Before there is joy on Easter Sunday, there is pain on Good Friday.  Before there is an empty tomb, there is a jagged, bloody cross.  Love wins in the end, but it suffers great losses along the way.


Notes:

1. This perspective is based primarily on Mark 8:29-35.  Quotations are taken from the Common English Bible unless noted otherwise.
2. Wikipedia: "Messianic Secret"
3. Mark 8:34-35 (The Message)
4. Matthew 7:21 (CEB)

The photograph of the crosses was taken by Lubos Houska and has been been released into the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.