Mark 8:22-38, Learning Christ! (2)

Today’s passage begins with a unique miracle of Christ.  It is the only one that is performed in stages.  We suppose Jesus led the man out of town to reduce the crowd issue.  Jesus was headed through Bethsaida to the area of Caesarea Philippi (another Gentile area, north of the Sea of Galilee).  His aim was to be with the Twelve and to have important conversations.  Nevertheless, He did take time to heal the man, and to do it in such a way as to make a point for the disciples.  The man’s eyes were opened in stages: first he could see men like looking like trees, and then after Jesus touched him again, he could see clearly.  Mark is the only Gospel to record this story.  The placing of it before the next event was strategic. 

In the next event, Jesus’ conversation with the Twelve, we see that Peter was like that blind man: he could see some truth he had not seen before (8:27-30), but he was still a long way from seeing things clearly (8:31-33).  You may think there should be more to this story because we are familiar with Matthew’s account (Mt. 16) where he speaks of Peter knowing the truth about Christ because God revealed it to him.  Jesus went on to talk about building His Church and so forth.  But that is all missing here: Mark is led by the Spirit to simply note that Jesus correctly answered, You are the Christ. 

Peter may have spoken for some of the others.  It does seem that Jesus uses this important moment to “begin” to teach them something new: 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.  With that, Peter took it upon himself to “rebuke” the Christ!  Don’t be too hard on Peter, because Jesus did that for you: Get behind Me, Satan!  What a powerful statement.  But it’s not so much that Peter seems to have pointy ears and a pitchfork for a tail.  It’s that Satan is using Peter to attack Jesus.  Peter was thinking like normal men.  It was the “leaven” of the Pharisees and Herod that Jesus had warned them about while crossing the sea.  Peter was seeing a great movement, people constantly coming to Christ for healing and so forth.  He was not thinking that rejection and death was the way the movement should go.  This is the common way we think.  But Jesus had in mind the “things of God.”  Would the Twelve ever come to that point, where they saw life and events and history through the key to knowledge, Jesus Christ?

Thus, like the healing of the blind man in stages, Peter and the Twelve and all who follow Christ need to understand that growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ comes in stages.  In the concluding verses (v34-38), Jesus calls anyone who wants to, to follow Him in such a way that you will not be stagnant but will grow.  In a nutshell, Jesus says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).  We, of course, will open many nutshells as we seek to hear Jesus’ critical teaching.  May I suggest: memorize Mark 8:34-38.