In the midst of Jesus’ words to the disciples about the necessity of pursuing the Kingdom, he alludes to a passage from the book of Isaiah. In order to understand what Jesus is saying to the disciples, we have to understand Isaiah. And once we understand Isaiah we will be able to perceive why the disciples were so confused by Jesus’ words. For Jesus simultaneously confirmed all their expectations about the Kingdom of God while radically redefining them.

Last week we heard Jesus’ second description of His calling as the Christ. We know He is the Messiah; now we are learning what that means. “The Son of Man is being delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, he will rise the third day.”

After this declaration of His mission, Jesus once again discusses with the disciples the nature of discipleship. What does it mean to be a disciple? He does this in a series of four dialogues, the first of which we shall discuss today: what is the measure of greatness in the Kingdom?

The disciples have been jostling for position, arguing who is going to be who in the coming Kingdom. Jesus knows & asks what they’ve been discussing. The disciples refuse to answer; their consciences are troubling them; clearly they know that what they’ve been debating wouldn’t be pleasing to the Lord – and yet they continue to convince themselves that this type of kingdom is what Jesus is establishing. When they refuse to answer, Jesus takes up the issue Himself. He rebukes their entire process of reasoning. In the Kingdom that I am introducing, greatness comes not from getting ahead but getting behind. Greatness is serving, sacrificing, giving yourself for the benefit of others.

The conversation that ensues after Jesus makes this declaration reveals where the real threat to greatness does and does not lie.

As we come to Jesus’ second announcement of His mission of suffering, death, and resurrection, we enter into the heart of His instruction about what it means to be the Christ. While the first half of the Gospel was concerned to identify Jesus, the second half defines Him – both in instruction and in demonstration.

Recall in Jesus’ first announcement of His suffering mission that He insisted on the absolute necessity of the course He is pursuing. The path of suffering, death, and resurrection is not optional. It is the necessary path, the divinely imposed path. “The SM must suffer …” Why? Because this was the path laid out in the Word of God.

In Jesus’ words to Peter, James & John while descending from the Mt of Transfiguration Jesus highlighted this again. He undermines the scribes’ interpretation of the OT by pointing the disciples to the passages which declare the suffering of the Son of Man. “And how is it written concerning the Son of Man, that He must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?”

Now Jesus is speaking again about His coming departure. And the words He speaks reinforce what He has already said. But despite Jesus’ clarity, the disciples simply do not understand. Indeed, not only do they not understand, they don’t want to. They are afraid of the truth.

As Jesus descends from the Mt of Transfiguration, he is greeted by quite a scene. There is a great tumult. A large crowd has gathered; the disciples are there, the scribes are disputing with them, and Jesus’ arrival causes quite a stir.

It appears that while Jesus was on the Mount the scribes had arrived to investigate his credentials further. The authorities in Jerusalem were very scrupulous about dotting all their i’s and crossing their t’s – and so they send investigators out once again to examine Jesus. Is this man a troublemaker or not? But they arrived while Jesus was gone and an argument has developed between the disciples and scribes, each endeavoring to vindicate his side.

A perfect opportunity presents itself. It seems that while the disciples & scribes were arguing, a man in desperate straits came to seek Jesus. Both sides latch on to the opportunity but the outcome is not as any expected.

How are we as Christians to approach the Old Testament? Answers to this question have varied considerably over the course of Christian history. The early church heretic Marcion, for example, maintained that the Old Testament was sub-Christian. He went so far as to maintain that there were two gods: the cruel and judgmental creator of the Old Testament and the loving and forgiving Father of the New Testament. The early church father Origen was influenced by Marcion and agreed with him that if the Old Testament were read literally then many things recorded there were “unworthy” of God. Hence, he advocated that the way we ought to approach the Old Testament is to allegorize or spiritualize the text.

While neither Marcion’s nor Origen’s approach to the Old Testament is popular today, there still remain a variety of positions. One that has been quite popular in the last century has been that advocated by the late C.I. Scofield in his Scofield Reference Bible. Scofield argued that the Old Testament is Jewish not Christian. He differed from Marcion in maintaining that the Old Testament is the Word of God. However, he maintained that while the Old Testament was relevant to its original audience and would once again be relevant in the millennial period, its relevance today is limited. He reached this position based on his principle of “consistent literalism.” Whenever we approach the prophecies of the Old Testament we must understand them in a “literal” fashion: Israel is always Israel, Jerusalem always Jerusalem, Zion always Zion.

Today we find that Jesus’ interaction with his disciples as they were descending the Mount of Transfiguration has direct relevance for this issue. As they descend from the Mount, the disciples are greatly puzzled. They know Jesus is Messiah and yet He has been messing with their understanding of what the Messianic office entails. What does it mean to be the Messiah? Because He has been messing with their paradigm, they are now forced to go back and try to rework many of the other ideas that have been rummaging about in their heads. One of these concerns the prophecy from Malachi of the coming of Elijah. And so the disciples ask Jesus, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus’ answer will help us grow in our ability to understand and apply the Old Testament in our own day.

Peter has just declared that Jesus is the Christ. After much time and instruction and demonstration, Jesus has finally managed to open the eyes of the disciples to His identity. But there is still more work to be done. Jesus now begins to tell them what this means – what it means to be the Messiah.

And His message is radically different from their expectations. His message is one of suffering, rejection, crucifixion, and resurrection. What’s the deal with this?

We can imagine that having identified Jesus as Messiah and then having Him so mess with their definitions that it is likely they began to doubt if they were correct. Perhaps we messed up. Maybe he isn’t the Messiah. To cut off these doubts Jesus takes three witnesses up the mountain and grants them a glimpse of the origin of His authority. You weren’t wrong – I really am the Messiah.

Communication is a funny thing. We often find ourselves telling our spouse, our sibling, or our friend something and they nod their head in agreement, “Oh, yes – I get it, I understand, I hear you.” But then later we discover, sometimes humorously and sometimes tragically, the message just didn’t get through. One perhaps thinks of the famous Abbot and Costello skit, “Who’s on first?” Abbot declares that “Who is on first” and Costello resonates and asks, “That’s just what I’ve been wanting to know, who’s on first?” To which Abbot replies – “That’s right, who is on first.” And so the miscommunication goes back and forth with Abbot using “Who” as a name and Costello in frustration using it as a questioning pronoun. “Who is on first?” he demands. “Yeah,” comes the confused reply.

It is some such phenomenon, though on the more serious end of the spectrum, that characterizes the entire section of the Gospel of Mark into which we are entering. Jesus speaks; but from the response of the disciples it is clear that though they are hearing they just aren’t understanding what Jesus is saying and what it means for them.

Thus far in our survey of the Gospel of Mark we have seen that the Gospel is divisible into two basic sections. The first section leads us up to Peter’s great confession in chapter 8 – You are the Christ! Throughout this first section, everyone is asking the question, “Who is this Man?” Who is Jesus? Is he a prophet? Is he John the Baptist raised from the dead? Is he a madman? A demon possessed man? Who exactly is Jesus?

At the turning point in the Gospel we witness the disciples finally penetrating through the various barriers preventing their grasp of Jesus’ identity. Peter confesses, “You are the Christ!” But like the blindman whom Jesus has just healed, the disciples aren’t fully healed yet. They know that Jesus is the Christ but it becomes evident that they don’t know what this means. And so what follows in the rest of the Gospel is first instruction and then exhibition of what it means for Jesus to be the Christ. Jesus teaches the disciples again and again – this is what it means that I am Messiah. Then his teaching comes to fruition, he lives out the very things that he has been telling his disciples.

Throughout the Gospel of Mark Jesus has been confronting the blindness of his generation. We have witnessed this blindness in the hardness of the Pharisees and Herodians and their plots against Jesus’ life. We have witnessed it in the life of Jesus’ family and their accusation that Jesus has gone mad. We have witnessed it in Jesus’ home town of Nazareth where even He marveled at their unbelief. And we have seen it, tragically, even among the disciples – having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear?

Today Jesus is confronted with a blind man in need of healing and the way in which Jesus treats this man forms an interpretive grid for the entire Gospel of Mark. Mark places this incident here in the middle of his gospel, just prior to Peter’s declaration of faith, to help us understand what is going on in the life and ministry of Jesus. What is it that Jesus was really all about in His ministry? What was his calling? It was to open the eyes of the blind; to cause light to shine on those who walked in darkness.

As we saw last week, Jesus has implied that in His coming the ritual purity laws separating Jew and Gentile are coming to an end. Consequently, the division between Jew and Gentile is also ending. Mark gives expression to this reality by recording for us Jesus’ ministry among the Gentiles, healing the daughter of a Syro-Phoenician woman and healing a deaf mute in the region of Decapolis. Now Mark tells us that while in the region of Decapolis, while in this predominantly Gentile region, Jesus gives another feast.

Why? Why feed another group of people? To proclaim once again the nature of His Kingship and the nature of His kingdom. What does it mean to be king in the context of the Gentiles?

It is this question that occupies the first twenty one verses of chapter 8 – and indeed that continues to occupy much of the rest of the Gospel. What does it mean to be Messiah? What does it mean to be one of His followers? In order to answer these questions faithfully, correctly, the disciples must beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.