Take a few deep breaths to center your heart and your mind as you prepare to meet with God.

Meditation on God

God’s chosen people had prophesied for thousands of years about the coming king and savior of the world, known as the Messiah. In many of the prophecies they attributed to their future Messiah, the character looked like a victorious warrior and a strong king such as the account in Psalm 2 where the Messiah is promised to break the nations with an iron rod. When Jesus showed up as the actual Messiah, this was true of him in a spiritual sense, but his tangible ministry on Earth looked more like Isaiah 53, which predicted that “He would be despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.” Take a moment and think about how Jesus goes about fulfilling God’s promises in very unexpected ways.

Teaching

Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” (Mark 8:27-33)

This text can seem a little strange at face value. What did Peter do wrong? Why was it such a big deal that he didn't want his friend Jesus to suffer?

Jesus expresses deep sorrow and stress in the Garden of Gethsemane later in our story when wrestling with the fact that he must suffer. Jesus will pray, “Father take this cup of suffering from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus had to suffer and he knew it. It was what the prophets prophesied about. He was the suffering servant who was to die for the iniquities of the world and the one who was going to crush the serpent at a cost. That's why it was problematic for Peter to say this and try to stop Jesus. 

There are times when we too must suffer. In the section right after this, Jesus talks about taking up your cross and following him. Taking up your suffering and following him. Drinking from the bitter cup and sacrificing. Sounds like a sad and miserable life? It's really quite the opposite. 1 Peter 4:13 says this: “But rejoice as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

What does it look like to suffer and sacrifice with Jesus? This kind of suffering isn’t the same as the suffering people experience when their health fails, jobs are lost, or they lose what they hold dear. Like the story of Job, this kind of suffering is out of their control. Instead, Jesus is calling us to intentional suffering, choosing it when it wouldn’t have been in our path before we met Jesus. In a story later in Mark, there is a young rich ruler who has everything material that he could ever want and his life circumstances allow him to keep it all, but when Jesus meets him, he asserts that truly following Him would require choosing to sacrifice and suffer by selling all that he had and giving it to the poor.

So, what does suffering and sacrificing with Jesus look like now? Maybe it's giving up a bad and long-standing habit. Or a default way of life you have adopted that isn't edifying. Maybe it's financial sacrifice and suffering for Jesus like the young rich ruler, or maybe it's your time and energy.

Maybe it's more, maybe you will be persecuted for following Jesus and you'll end up in prison or even death. Either way, one thing is clear: followers of Jesus don’t avoid suffering. Instead, we choose to live a life of sacrifice so that we “may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

Examination

In our passage today, Jesus has conversations with his disciples as he is marching toward the cross, the symbol of sacrificial, self-donating suffering. Take a moment and ask yourself this question: What would it look like for you to subject yourself to righteously suffering with Jesus?

Memory Verse

I encourage you all as you are met with opportunities and situations that you will suffer that you drink the bitter cup with a smile and a tear running down your face because we will rejoice when his glory is revealed. As you go into your day searching for ways to look like Jesus at real personal cost, remind yourself of this verse:

“The Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected.” (Mark 8:31a)