March 4th Reflection by Bill Lynch

Second Sunday in Lent
Mark 8:31-38 (NRSV)
The passion prediction
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

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. For 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

Reflection
We have our body and we have our spirit and we have God. We protect our body and care for it. Sometimes we abuse our body with over-indulgence of food, alcohol, sex, sound, touch or any number of over-indulgences, but in some way we seek to protect our body too. Our body decays all on it's own and we resist this decay however we can.

We have our spirit. For the Christian or for any religious person we feed our spirit's with the faith and practices of our God. Some call our spirit our soul.

Jesus goes as far in this passage as basically telling his disciples that his body will be persecuted and he will die. But his soul will live. Jesus Spirit will live on. He even reveals that his body will be reunited with his Spirit at the resurrection. This is too much to handle for people who want to see Jesus as an earthly ruler over governments and religious institutions. It's beyond what Peter could comprehend at the time.

In some way Jesus was taken back to the desert forty days with Satan, and Peter was used as Satan's disciple to tempt Jesus away from enduring this suffering. But Peter belonged to Jesus. Peter was Jesus' disciple, so a harsh response was a loving response. Peter needed his eyes opened to Satan's tricks.

Jesus calls the disciples together and teaches. You must give yourself to God. It's OK to joyfully give your soul to God. You need not worry about the pain and persecution and loss of body, because there will be a resurrection. A resurrection, yes, even for you and for me. Our bodies will be reunited with our spirits and we will be one with God.

Don't take this as a means to escape the ills we suffer. We are to take on those ills and care for our body, knowing that God has a purpose for us to carry out as we live in this decaying and dying body. We trust in Jesus' resurrection that we too will be resurrected. But until then we joyfully carry on as disciples of Jesus following in his footsteps of love and sacrifice to all he gives to us. Thanks be to God!

Prayer
Lord, you teach me and I get it little by little. When I'm in error, rebuke me and correct me and show me your love... today... tomorrow... and forever. --- Amen