First Reading: Isaiah 50:5-9 – I offered my back to those who struck me.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 114(116):1-6, 8-9 – I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.

Second Reading: James 2:14-18 – If good works do not go with it, faith is quite dead.

Gospel: Mark 8:27-35 – The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously.

For a while now I have been talking to you about obstacles on our journey towards God. I warned that the crowd, the disciples, the so-called “traditions”, etc., hinder our progress in spirituality and as such, we must be weary of them. Yet, even if one succeeds in surmounting these aforementioned obstacles, one might still not have discovered God. This is because there is one final obstacle to overcome, namely, our very idea of God itself. People are willing to give up everything – possessions, family, friends, and even their lives, in their search for God. However, the one thing that they find it hard to give up is their idea of God. Some are prepared to maim and kill to defend the idea of God they have. The refusal to give up our idea and concept of God, however, is the very last barrier that inhibits our discovery of God. From our infancy, we were conditioned to develop a concept of God that fits into the society in which we were raised. This concept somehow got stuck in our subconscious and has fashioned our understanding of God and spirituality ever after. It therefore, requires a certain level of willingness to “let go” in order to give up that concept of God that we have. But because a lot of people find it easier to cling than to let go, that concept of God got stuck in them and they are unwilling to give it up, and consequently, have failed to discover God.

Jesus was aware of this problem when he asked the apostles in today’s gospel who the people think he is. Of course, he was not just conducting an opinion poll about the thinking of the people. He was rather trying to find out whether the apostles (his closest confidants) had finally given up their primordial idea of the Messiah or whether they were still clinging to it. From the answers he received about the thinking of the people, it was obvious that Jesus meant different things to different people. Those who saw him as John the Baptist are those who belong to the camp of Herod who saw an identical style of teaching (end of age, coming of judgment) between Jesus and John the Baptist, and then concluded that Jesus was John the Baptist raised to life. Those who saw Jesus as Elijah were trying to find a fulfilment of Jewish messianic expectation in which Elijah is believed to reappear on earth in the last days to prepare for the eventual coming of the messiah (cf., the 5^th undrunk cup of wine at the Passover ceremony). Others who saw Jesus as Jeremiah were relying on the words of Jesus that mirrored the language of the New Covenant prophecy of Jeremiah (cf., Jer. 31:31-34). Still others, who saw Jesus as one of the prophets, based their concept on Deuteronomy 18:15-22 that promised that in the days of restoration of the nations, God would send them a greater prophet like Moses, to whom the nation would finally give obedience.

When Jesus asked the apostles a more direct question of who they themselves thought he was, it became obvious that only Peter partially had the correct idea of who he was. Peter accurately answered that he was the Christ (or the Messiah). But it quickly became clear that Peter’s idea of “Christ” was wrong. Like most Jews, he had the concept of “Christ” or “Messiah” as an all-conquering warrior who will lead the people of Israel in a victorious war against their enemies and occupiers. However, Jesus started talking of his impending suffering, rejection and death. At this point, Peter couldn’t take it any longer. His concept of Messiah has been challenged and he is unwilling to give it up. But Jesus had to rebuke him with the famous sentence: “Get behind me Satan”. The original Hebrew term “Satan” is a noun from a verb meaning primarily ‘to hinder’; ‘to obstruct’; ‘to oppose’; as is found in Numbers 22:22ff, where the word ‘satan’ was used to describe the angel of God who obstructed Balaam to oppose his journey. The same word ‘satan’ is also used in 1 Sam. 29:4 to describe David in his famous fight against the Philistines. The expression, ‘Ha-satan’ is traditionally translated as ‘the accuser’ or ‘the adversary’. (cf., Psalm 109:6). By choosing the same Hebrew word to describe Peter, Jesus was simply telling him that he stood on the way of his realising his Messiahship by trying to prevent him from suffering and the cross.

Who then is Jesus? The one thing with which to identify the true Jesus is the cross. There is no Jesus without the cross; there is no Messiah without suffering; and there is no Christianity without hardship. St. Paul was boasting of how he is genuinely a friend of Jesus because he has suffered much – he enumerated how many shipwrecks he encountered, how many times he was flogged, how many times he suffered sicknesses, etc. Today many of us boast that because they are so-called “child of God”, they cannot suffer any sickness or any hardship. Others preach that once you give your life to God, all sufferings and hardship (especially financial hardship) will be removed. And so we ask: which God are you talking about? This concept of God is exactly who God is not. But, unfortunately, a lot of people are not ready to give up that idea of God. A God who assumed the “Suffering Servant of Yahweh” that Isaiah prophesied in the first reading of today by allowing his Son to suffer and to die cannot be the same God who identifies his servants by their impossibility to suffer hardship. This contradicts everything that God is. It is therefore, not a good sign to boast that, you have not suffered therefore you are a child of God. Show me somebody who has not suffered any hardship or insults and I will show you somebody who is not a friend of God. A child of God is not a person who does not suffer illness, hardship, or insults. It is rather a person who has raised himself/herself above the level where he/she can no longer be affected by sufferings and insults. This is what Isaiah meant when he said that “The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the insults”. As Christians, we should rather be very worried if everything is going smoothly for us. It is a bad omen not to experience hardship and suffering.

As our concept of God is defective so also our concept of faith is flawed. Many of us think that faith simply means to proclaim that “I believe”. St. James has shown us in the second reading that if faith is not given concrete and practical expression in good works, it is as well as dead. Without doubt, it is through the merits of Jesus Christ and faith in him and not through our personal efforts that salvation comes. But belief that is not put into practice, which is not lived out daily, is as useless as having a million Euros lying dormant in the bank while one is starving for lack of money to buy food. There is no better way to put it than this: if you say that you have faith, let your actions speak louder than your voice.