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Second Sunday in Lent

Mark 8
31Jesus began telling his disciples what would happen to him. He said, "The nation's leaders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law of Moses will make the Son of Man suffer terribly. He will be rejected and killed, but three days later he will rise to life." 32Then Jesus explained clearly what he meant.
Peter took Jesus aside and told him to stop talking like that. 33But when Jesus turned and saw the disciples, he corrected Peter. He said to him, "Satan, get away from me! You are thinking like everyone else and not like God."
34Jesus then told the crowd and the disciples to come closer, and he said:
If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me. 35If you want to save your life, [e] you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me and for the good news, you will save it. 36What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself? 37What could you give to get back your soul?
38Don't be ashamed of me and my message among these unfaithful and sinful people! If you are, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.


He's lying there, clearly dying, and all he can say is "Rosebud," the name of a long lost sled.

It turns out that each of them already possessed the things they desired. All the wizard did was point this out.

All seems lost for Rosie and Charlie until we realize that their partially submerged boat, torpedoes still attached, lies directly in the path of the German ship.

At the end she decides to return to Tara and says, "after all, tomorrow is another day"

I have a new favourite website called "ruinedendings.com." Could you tell? Notice I have only ruined classics and not the latest showing at the Cinemax. My son and I see a lot of films, and as a result have become a regular source for film reviews. "How was it?" someone will ask, and then begins the delicate dance of giving enough information without giving up the ending. This, of course, becomes even harder when there is a twist involved, such as the one at the end of Woody Allen's new film "Match Point." What a terrible thing to have such delicious knowledge and not be able to share.

Preaching in Lent is a bit like trying to tell the story without giving away the ending. We all know what is going to happen to Jesus. We know it in such great detail, in fact, that it colours our entire trip through the season (and one could argue our entire trip through the Bible). In some ways it is hard not to jump ahead. The readings in Lent all point to Good Friday and Easter Sunday and the temptation to talk about the end of the story is very strong.

The other temptation is to feel smug in the face of the disciple's ignorance. When Peter takes Jesus aside and tells him to stop suggesting that the road to Jerusalem leads to death, we are left feeling rather self-satisfied: we've read the final chapter, and we know where this goes. We have been drawn in, and the literary device that Mark employs is designed specifically to build within us the sense that we are insiders, to increase our affinity for Jesus and his story.

Thomas Merton wrote these words:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. (Yancey, p. 195).

One of the great ironies of the Christian religion is that they more you know the less you seem to know. Thomas Merton, arguably the greatest Christian minds of the last century, puts this in sharp relief as he makes his confession: he can only suppose that his actions are consistent with God's will for us. If you are like me, I read such a quote and think, "if Thomas Merton can't know, then how on earth am I expected to know?"

In the same manner we can consider the "ignorance" of Peter. Jesus stated again and again that the "Son of Man" would suffer and die at the hands of a people that could not accept him and could not accept his way. ”You are thinking like everyone else and not like God," Jesus said, and we think to ourselves "that's a rather tall order there, Jesus. If we could all think like God the problems of the world would vanish pretty quickly."

While we are walking with the spiritual giants, there is also a wonderful observation from C. S. Lewis regarding the nature of our experience of God. First he points to the image of a ship on the ocean, an image of being surrounded by something vast and limitless. He sets this image aside, however, and opts instead for an image of walking near the sea, and only catching occasional glimpses of the ocean nearby. This seems to ring true in a way that the former image does not. It also seems to speak to human desire, in that travel near the ocean has a unique excitement. We look forward to that first glimpse of the ocean, it is something extraordinary, and for those of us who live "inland" quite rare.

Why, then, is it so important to admit our ignorance in the face of "knowing the end of the story"? What value could there be in lifting up the things we cannot know? Looking again at Peter, it wasn't so much that he was ignorant, but rather he was mistaken. In his mind there was a program, call it the Messiah program, which involved the acquisition of political power and an end to Roman occupation. He wanted a new king, the traditional understanding of Messiah, and Jesus seemed to be the best candidate for the job. "Get behind me Satan" is a rebuke for Peter to be sure, but it is also a rebuke for anyone who would turn the story of God into a story about gaining worldly power.

Perhaps part of the call of Lent is to rehearse our ignorance. What are the things we cannot know? Emptying ourselves of the things we think we know and the things we cannot know will perhaps leave us better prepared to hear the things God wants us to know. In other words, why wait if you already possess the thing for which you wait? In preparing for the death of Jesus, we have an opportunity to set aside the assumptions we have gathered over the years and look at this event anew.

"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." (NASB)

"If any of you wants to be my follower," he told them, "you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me." (NLT)

"If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me." (CEV)


Perhaps for our purposes we will indulge in a new translation: "If any of you want to be my followers," Jesus said, "you must set aside what you think you know, pick up your cross and follow me."

Henri Nouwen (yet another spiritual giant) coined the phrase "a ministry of absence" to describe the need to look beyond a sense of God's presence and prepare for the moments (far from rare) when God seems absent. He wrote these words:

We eat bread, but not enough to take our hunger away; We drink wine, but not enough to take our thirst away; we read from a book, but not enough to take our ignorance away. Around these "poor signs" we come together and celebrate. What then do we celebrate? The simple signs, which cannot satisfy all our desires, speak first of all of God's absence. He has not yet returned; we are still on the road, still waiting, still hoping, still expecting, still longing..." (Yancey, p. 242)

Waiting, hoping, expecting and longing we wait. And while this waiting has all the hallmarks of Advent and the beginning of God's incarnation, it is radically different. The new signs of God's coming are found in the shop where nails are made, in a thorn bush growing by the wayside, in the tall trees that surround us. Can we begin to examine these signs or will we look away?

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 6:30 AM