Lent 3B (March  11, 2012) Lwnr 4

       He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”

        He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, 

        let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to 

      save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,

        will save it                                                                                               Mark 8: 29, 34-35 

                                                                                                                                    
This is without doubt one of my favorite of Jesus' teaching moments. Peter, God bless him, has just had the 'insight of a lifetime' and has a whole list of (no, I exaggerate, there were just 4) ways that Jesus has just blown up the image of 'Messiah' as Judaism knew it. The royal son of David (1) would be preceded by the return of Elijah (2) and enter commanding his powerful army (3) accompanied by many signs and wonders (4). [see John Shearman's Lectionary blog]

But Jesus comes with a whole new understanding of 'Messiah'. He will suffer and die helplessly, and by doing so he will most clearly and plainly reveal God's strength. Jesus is constantly 'inverting' realities and calling us to live in those new inverted realities.  If we are unwilling to let go of our preconceived notions of who God is and how Jesus is to fulfill his role as Messiah, then we can have no part in the kingdom. 

Sometimes God's chosen manner of demonstrating God's love and salvation makes me a little crazy. And a lot disappointed. We certainly know that God is able to save our loved one from any disease or in any time of peril. From our perspective it is a no brainer which way is up, which way is down, and just what God 'ought' to do.

But remember the way God created our eyes to work? We see an image and it comes in to our eyes, and in passing through the pupil, the image is inverted -- turned upside down. Our brains are the /corrective lenses for our eyes ....

    +think of a time when God made a decision OTHER than you would have; 
       can you see Jesus saying 'you must lose your life' to you? 
       is he really saying 'you must literally die, right now'?

    +could he be saying 'you must lose your life by losing control over it, 
       giving that control all to me, letting me be the lens you see through ... 
       THEN you will live'?

This is not a 'perception', but how our eyes actually see a tall city building.

This is what we see, however, after our brains learn to make the adjustment  

Caesarea Philiippi: where Jesus taught the disciples; one of three headwaters of the Jordan River (the spring literally flowed out the mouth of the cave)

In this closer shot you can see the size of the cave relative to the people; following an earthquake in the 6th century, the was block from its path to the cave and now exits a number of feet just below the cave floor.          dc

Another inverted perspective from this passage: there are 2 common Greek words for 'rock', petros (masculine) and petra (feminine). The former refers to those rocks that can be picked up and carried, like those used to make the walls above. The latter refers to very large, even massive rock which cannot be moved except by large teams of animals and/or people .... or not at all, as in the massive rock face the cave sits in above. Simon is named Peter (in Matthew's  telling of this story) 'petros', the smaller and portable form. Hmmmm.......