An Open Table where Love knows no borders

Who do you say I am?

A sermon on Mark 8:27-38 by Adam Couchman

A video recording of the whole service, including this sermon, is available here.

“Who do you say I am?” 

This question is central to Mark’s account of the gospel. In fact, it is central to the Christian faith. It is the question that consumed the debates of the ecumenical councils – Who do we say Jesus is? Divine? Human? Both? It is the dominant theme of the creeds that emerged from those councils and which is confessed aloud in churches across the world – “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.” It is also central to the responses Christians make to the interrogation questions when they are baptised. 

Our answer to this question is central to who we are as God’s people. 

As far as Mark is concerned, this is an open secret. He gives his audience the answer to the question right at the very beginning. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1). 

There it is. That’s the answer. Remember, too, that “Christ” is not Jesus’ surname; it’s a title. It means “Anointed One.” In the Greek, it’s Christos. In the Hebrew, it’s Messiah. 

The way Mark tells the story is very similar to superhero movies today. We, the audience, are given the secret identity of the main character right from the beginning; Superman is Clark Kent, Batman is Bruce Wayne, Spiderman is Peter Parker. For the rest of the story we watch in wonder and amazement as people are completely baffled when Clark Kent takes off his glasses, puts on a different outfit, and no one knows who he is anymore! 

The question that is going to be asked and asked again and again throughout the rest of the account of the gospel is answered right at the very beginning. As we read through the gospel, or as was most likely originally intended, as the gospel is performed before an audience, we are meant to keep this answer in mind. We know the answer, but the characters in the story don’t. Except for a few. And who those characters are surprises us completely. 

I want you to imagine yourself hearing the story of Jesus for the first time. You might be a brand new Christian and you’ve heard enough of the story to make your own confession of faith in Jesus, but you’re just about to hear Mark’s account of the gospel for the first time. He starts by telling you that Jesus is the Son of God. Mark doesn’t mess around with accounts of Jesus’ genealogy or his birth. He just wants to show that Jesus is the Son of God, and so he gets straight into it. The first character to enter the stage is John the Baptist. Since I’m preaching at a Baptist church it makes sense that he gains a prominent place here. 

Central to the story of Jesus’ baptism is the confession of who Jesus is… and this comes from “a voice from heaven.” (1:11). The voice confirms what we’ve already been told. It speaks directly to Jesus and says to him; “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (1:11) 

We now know that God knows, and Jesus knows, what Mark has already told us—that Jesus is the Son of God. 

We move on and Jesus calls his first disciples; Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John. Here we might expect at least one of them to say something. But no… they are silent. They follow Jesus but we’ll have to wait to find out if they know who he really is. 

We travel to Capernaum where Jesus teaches in the synagogue. Perhaps one of the religious leaders will identify him? Surely they will recognise Jesus for who he really is? Who would you expect to be the first character in the story to clearly, confidently, and accurately identify Jesus for who he really is? 

A disciple? A religious leader? Perhaps a family member of Jesus? 

No… it’s a man with an unclean spirit. 

“I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” (1:24) 

Astounding! As is Jesus’ response; he silences him??? He exorcises the demon, tells him to be quiet, and everyone around is amazed. 

“What is this?” (1:27) they ask.

Jesus’ fame spreads across the country… but do people really know who he is? 

The amazement from those who watch Jesus continues throughout the story. When Jesus tells a paralysed man that his sins are forgiven the scribes sitting nearby ask “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (2:7). Later, when he teaches in his hometown, the locals cannot get beyond the fact that he grew up down the street with Mary as his mother. “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands?” (6:2). 

Meanwhile, it’s the demons who keep blurting out the secret; that answer that was given to us right at the beginning but so many people are yet to figure out. 

Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” (3:11)

How about the man from Gerasenes, possessed by a legion of demons, living among the tombs, unable to be restrained? He sees Jesus, runs, bows before him, and shouts out “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” (5:7) What happens when the people from town find out that the local weirdo has been cured? They come and tell Jesus to go away (5:17). 

How about the disciples? Surely the people that are closest to Jesus, spending every day with him, watching his every move, and hearing every word of his teaching; surely, they’ll know who he is? 

Sadly, they don’t get it either. When Jesus was sleeping in the boat in the midst of the storm and the disciples wake him up to save them, not even the calming of the storm could reveal to them the answer to this question. They’re left wondering; “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (4:41) All the way up to the passage where Peter finally makes his confession the disciples’ actions lead Jesus to ask them “Do you not yet understand?” (8:21) 

Finally, in the middle of chapter 8 Jesus asks the disciples the question “Who do people say that I am?” (8:27) It’s an indirect way of asking them how they would answer the question. Their answer reveals that there is probably still debate amongst his own followers – John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets? Surely, one of us has got to be right? 

Then the question is changed. This second time it’s asked it is direct and to the point. “But who do you say that I am?” 

We who’ve been listening since the beginning of the gospel and watching in amazement as demon-possessed people get this information straight away, the religious elite refuse to believe it, and the disciples are completely confused by what is happening right in front of them; finally, we hear the answer to this question from one of his closest followers. Peter steps up and responds 

“You are the Messiah” (8:29)

There’s a sense of relief that comes from hearing Peter say these words. Finally, someone gets it. But don’t let that relief fool you. 

The response triggers a turning point in the gospel for where our attention is focused. Up until this point it’s been upon “Who is Jesus?” Now it turns to “What has he come here to do?” The answer? The cross. 

Mark tells us that Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be killed, and after three days rise again. Interestingly, whilst the disciples are ordered to keep his identity a secret, his destiny is discussed openly with anyone who’ll listen. 

For Peter, the first of the disciples to confess Jesus as the Messiah, it’s all too much to bear. He cannot reconcile that the Son of God’s destiny would be suffering and death. Jesus turns his back on Peter, looks at the other disciples, and openly rebukes Peter. 

“Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (8:33) 

He moves on immediately, calling together the crowd and the disciples. The revelation of coming attractions continues. 

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (8:34)

The Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus the Christ, turns to face his destiny and then calls upon his followers to come with him in his journey towards Calvary. Jesus wants his disciples to immediately connect their confession of who Jesus is with radical discipleship that follows him regardless of the cost. 

Immediately following on from Peter’s confession comes Mark’s account of the Mount of Transfiguration. It’s important because it acts like a bookend to the events that happened at the very beginning; specifically, the baptism of Jesus. The voice from heaven that we heard way back at the start of the gospel returns with a very similar message to the one that it brought before. There is one important difference this time, though. Before, when Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan river, the voice spoke directly to him. It confirmed his identity; the identity that Mark had revealed right from the outset. “You are my Son.” Now, on top of the Mount of Transfiguration, the voice addresses the three disciples who journeyed up with Jesus; Peter, James and John. It confirms Peter’s confession from a week ago; “This is my Son, the Beloved” (9:7) 

But like the call to radical discipleship that followed on from the confession of Jesus as Messiah, the voice gives instruction of what to do now; “Listen to him!” 

Peter may have been the first to confess the true identity of Jesus but he certainly was not the last. We join with Christians throughout the ages who confess that “Jesus is Lord!” At baptism, the creed becomes our confession – “I believe… in Jesus Christ, [God’s] only Son, our Lord.” When we recite the creed in our liturgy, we reaffirm our faith together with all Christians who have made this confession the central expression of our faith – “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.” It all connects back in historic continuity to Peter’s confession before Jesus that day; “You are the Messiah!” 

But in confessing the same confession we must respond to the same instruction. If we want to be his followers, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him. We must hear the voice from heaven and “listen to him.” 

There is no other way. 

I love the way Mark tells the story of Jesus. He doesn’t mess about with details, or spend time telling you about Jesus’ great, great, great, grandmother. He just gets straight into it. “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Our reading today is the focal point of this confession. “You are the Messiah!” But that confession demands discipleship – “Take up your cross and follow me.” 

I want to suggest to you that Mark demands of his listeners a response like this more than any other; particularly if you read it in its shortest version. Now, if you’ve read Mark all the way through you may have noticed that the final chapter, Mark 16, has some headings; “The Shorter Ending of Mark” and “The Longer Ending of Mark.” The reality is we don’t have the original version of any of the biblical books. What we have are copies of copies of copies. Amongst all these copies there are some differences. Some small. Some big. This is one of the bigger ones. Scholars analyse, discuss, and debate the versions that we have available. The reality is we’re left with a significant question and the current response of those publishing translations of the texts is to include the Shorter and Longer ending. But the reality is the earliest versions of the Gospel according to Mark do not include either one. It just stops. Abruptly. 

And it’s a really uncomfortable ending. 

But there’s a point to it. Mark is a story-teller. It’s dramatic. And he knows that the point is not to just give all the details of Jesus life in one complete text but to elicit a faith-based response from his audience. Remember, the gospel is written to show that Jesus is the Son of God and to call upon his followers to respond to that by taking up their cross and following Jesus. It’s a call to radical discipleship. A call to listen to Jesus. A call to following him regardless of the cost. To believe he is the Son of God and then do what he says, regardless of how far down the road you can see. 

As a conclusion to tonight’s sermon I’m going to read the shortest ending of Mark’s gospel but as I do I want you to try and imagine that you’re hearing it for the first time. Try and put aside all of the other endings you know from the other gospels; Matthew’s Great Commission, Luke’s Road to Emmaus, and John’s fishing restoration scene. Just try and imagine that you’ve just heard the story of Jesus for the first time. You’ve heard that he is the Son of God and that he calls all of his followers to take up their cross and follow him. You’ve heard that Jesus has risen from the dead, but you don’t have any proof – how could you? By now he’s ascended and risen into heaven. In this shortest of the endings, there is very little reference to the risen Jesus. In fact, he doesn’t even make an appearance, he’s only referred to by an angel. No one, not even Mary Magdelene sees him. No one gets to see the risen Jesus, they’re left to either believe it or reject it. 

Just like us. 

The disciples are left to make a choice. We are left to make a choice. How are they going to answer this question? How are you going to answer this question? 

“Who do you say I am?”

Read Mark 16:1-8 

7 Comments

  1. Vincent Michael Hodge

    What a ‘tour de force” by Adam of Mark’s text and more significantly, Mark’s meaning. Like Mark, Adam takes us to a dramatic conclusion. As Adam says: “… It just stops. Abruptly…..And it’s a really uncomfortable ending…..But there’s a point to it. Mark is a story-teller. It’s dramatic. And he knows that the point is not to just give all the details of Jesus life in one complete text but to elicit a faith-based response from his audience….”. Adam is spot on.
    William Barclay, in an old commentary from 1964, described how Mark’s methodology is like the pagan Mystery Religions who had a story of a suffering god who died and rose again. Barclay than laid out a summary of one of these “passion plays” – Isis and Osiris. These stories were re-enacted as the final liturgical event in the initiate’s journey into the full “mystery”. It was very sensate – it was ritual meant to be scorchingly experiential – an encounter like liturgy should be. Mark’s gospel is just so.
    And this is where Adam’s sermon really gets interesting. His reading of the abruptly ending Marcan text at chapter 16(8). As Adam says – turn off our modern understandings and put on our first century Jewish mindsets. One point that affects me is those last words – for they were afraid. In Kings James Translation of the Greek, the phrase is “e-phobounto gar”. It is where we get the word “phobia”. “Gar” means “for”. Now a Jew would also be hearing the Marcan text as the text of Genesis chapter 18(15). Genesis describes a frightened Sarah with the phrase “..e-phoubethe gar”… – “….for she was afraid…”. Sarah was unable to accept a Word from the Lord just as the women were stunned by the explicit promise of the angel in Mark 16(6-7): “…he is not here, he has been raised…..”. Sarah had “laughed” at the suggestion of a child in her old age but was afraid to voice her un-belief when challenged by the Lord. So, following Adam’s stage direction, I place myself in Sarah’s place and in the place of those Women of Mark’s story- alongside Peter’s confusion from today’s Gospel. What I hear is that just as the promise to Sarah was effective so too I hear Mark saying that the promise to the Women is true. The existence of the community from which Mark’s Gospel emerged is the proof – it is a living community of Faith that promoted Mark’s abrupt Gospel ending as a way of bearing witness to the truth of the angel’s word.
    Another way to support Adam’s sermon about the significance of the words heard at both The Baptism and the Transfiguration – “.Beloved Son…Well Pleased…listen to Him” is to draw on the proclamation of my own tradition as a Roman Catholic. The late Pope John Paul 2 inserted 5 Mysteries of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the centuries long 15 Mysteries. The 5 new ones captured the Public Life of Jesus – Baptism, Wedding Feast at Cana; Announcing the Kingdom; Transfiguration; The Banquet of the Last Spper Eucharist (Catholic Mass). So the late Pope was proclaiming the message of Baptism/Feast and Transfiguration/Feast as the “book-ends” around the central mystery – The Proclamation. So Adam is in total agreement on the centrality of the biblical message of those words-from-heaven – a circumlocution for God speaking. As William Barclay pointed out in another book, those words-from-heaven seem to be a compilation and conflation of quotes from Psalm 2:7 – a coronation psalm – and Isaiah 42:1 – part of the Servant songs which finale in Isaiah 53:5 – wounded for our transgressions; and bruised for our inequities. Jesus is king through suffering. These Old Testament references would also have found a home in the mind of a Jewish listener when Mark’s text was read..abrupt to us but full of meaning for those with Jewish ears to hear.
    Adam’s tour-de-force amply prepares us, that sensing the Jewish “listening”, we can expect that the fear within the women at Mark 16(8) was just as much “amazement and trembling” ( as Angel tries to calm them) since they had Isaiah, Genesis and Psalms to help them to interpret and de-brief their experiences at the empty tomb! We know that in Jewish OT language, “trembling and amazement” were indications that the person was receiving an ‘epiphany’; a revelation from The Lord. Being reduced to “silence” was the proper response to such an epiphany.

  2. Vincent Michael Hodge

    I have been benefiting from Adam’s sermon methodology and so I hope you will accomodate my usual lengthy postscript. Adam’s sermon is notable in that he gave us the ‘wide sweep” of Mark’s Gospel and not just a micro focus on the particular reading from this week’s lectionary. Especially i have followed his call to think about the last words of the whole gospel – “…they said nothing to anyone..”.
    Scholars used to talk about the “Markan Messianic Secret” as a feature of the whole Gospel. Jesus enjoined people not to speak about his works as he got closer to Jerusalem. This despite the opening chapters describing how his fame had spread widely around Galilee. Adam drew our notice to the twice repeated “voice from heaven” at the Baptism and The Transfiguration. Despite all those “hints” of the lack of silence in the beginning, Adam’s methodology has meant that another “penny” has dropped for me. What if Mark has given us the idea that all through the Gospel there is a call to both “proclamation” and “silence” as a sort of challenge – a challenge that Adam rightly took as his theme – who do we SAY jesus is – not Think but SAY?
    So at the end of Mark we have a sort of scriptural satirical “joke’ – Mark leaves us with the cute line …..the main witnesses are SAYING NOTHING….yet!
    The beginning verses of Mark’s Gospel quote Malachi and Isaiah describing a “voice that cries in the wildnerness…a messenger..”. At the Baptism, as Adam tells us, there is the VOICE. And thirdly we have the Temptations and Silence in the Wilderness as a preliminary to John’s Arrest ( a ‘silencing’) and Jesus appearance -a sighting where “…he proclaimed the Good News from God….”. Jesus, says Mark, is the Malachi messenger. A lot of sound for a Gospel that lead sus into silence.
    So Mark, writing his gospel for an Oral Culture that mainly “hears and says” and rarely if ever “writes” puts before his listeners the challenge – what do you SAY about Jesus.
    In the beginning the voice of God and the Old Testament Scriptures is strongly heard but by the conclusion of the Gospel there is that strange “lull before the storm” – the women Said Nothing to No-one.
    Adam has amazingly kept us on the main theme despite his wide sweep that could have distracted us – Mark’s Gospel has all the “big names” saying something – even an angel at the end – but predominating at that end-point there is this crashing NON_SAYING …this loud Silence. A rather poor joke in bad taste by Mark on his audience one might protest loudly? But all the time we have Adam reminding us: Who do I SAY Jesus is….am I someone to break the silence at the risk of the same fate that overcame Jesus? Thanks Adam.

  3. Vincent Michael Hodge

    And just to add some spice – Mark has as our final witnesses – WOMEN- who biblically were not accepted as formal witnesses anyway – talk about rubbing it in -Mark is not making it easy for us – he has taken away all the props – we are left standing before the empty tomb and the question of a missing body – that of a crucified messiah – failed or otherwise – what am i to say?. I am stammering like the deaf and dumb man from last week’s Gospel!

  4. Thanks Adam for your words. Reflections I’m left pondering on are: we might be told something, even lots of times and ‘know’ it (eg. Jesus is the Son of God) but it’s another thing to fully learn something for yourself, and that breakthrough is a bit mysterious. Maybe the more famous a person is, the harder it is to see the truth of them because we think we already know? Is that one reason why Jesus tells people to be quiet about him? And then once Jesus leads his followers to recognise who he is, only then he starts helping them to understand his purpose. I was reminded of a question that Ar’weet Aunty Caroline Briggs asks Second Peoples living on Boonwurrung country – ‘what is your purpose on this land?’ I think it’s better to approach that question once non-Indigenous folks like me have first done some work on our identity and history of being Second Peoples on Aboriginal land. (Anyway, now you’ve read all our sermons on the sermon, you can get back to your PhD!)

  5. This was an excellent sermon. Thank you Adam. It succeeds in doing something quite difficult – giving us a big picture view of the whole of Mark’s gospel without losing the connection to the particular passage and the punch of the question it asks of us. As the sermon made clear, what that punchy question asks of us is not a theoretical answer, but a response that steps into the story and lets it rewrite us, who we are, and how we live. Great stuff. Thank you.

  6. Thanks Adam for taking time away (or is it a welcome relief) from your PhD to thoroughly address a challenging issue with us. Thanks for your insight(s).

    Best wishes.

  7. I have read this sermon over 2 months since it was preached, and it was as if I had never heard it before. I remembered the visual but I think struggled a bit with Adam’s accent but reading the sermon was a total revelation.
    I say that every preacher has a sermon that I never forget and this is one of those. Adam has opened up the Gospel in a way that is simple but profound and demands a response from the reader. The opening statement demands of us to ask the question – Is this true?
    Our habit it of reading bits of the gospel story in no particular order have not served us well . Mark expected us to read it as we would a normal book and walk with him on the journey to find the answers. The shortened ending is brilliant and if I was an author that is just how I would end the story
    .

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