24th SUNDAY YEAR B GOSPEL COMMENTARY:
“WHOEVER WISHES TO COME AFTER ME…”

Mk 8:27-35

Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”

COMMENTARY FROM THE NAVARRE BIBLE, ST. MARK (WITH PERMISSION).

• Peter’s profession of faith
  • 29 Peter’s profession of faith is reported here in a shorter form than in Mt 16:18-19. Peter seem to go no further than say that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. Eusebius of Caesarea, in the fourth century, explains the Evangelist’s reserve by the fact that he was the interpreter of St Peter, who omitted from his preaching anything which might appear to be self-praise. The Holy Spirit, when inspiring St Mark, wanted the Gospel to reflect the preaching of the prince of the Apostles, leaving it to other evangelists to fill out certain important details to do with the episode of the confession of Peter.
    • The sketchiness of the narrative still shows Peter’s role quite clearly: he is the first to come forward affirming the messiahship of Jesus. Our Lord’s question, “But who do you say that I am?”, shows what Jesus is asking the Apostles for: not an opinion, more or less favourable, but firm faith. It is St Peter who ex presses this faith (cf. note on Mt 16:13-20).
• Jesus foretells his Passion and Resurrection. Christian renunciation
  • 31-33 This is the first occasion when Jesus tells his disciples about the suffer­ings and death he must undergo. He does it twice more, later on (cf. Mk 9:31 and 10:32). The Apostles are surprised, because they cannot and do not want to understand why the Master should have to suffer and die, much less that he should be so treated “by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes.” But Peter, with his usual spontaneity, immediately begins to protest. And Jesus replies to him us­ing the same words as he addressed to the devil when he tempted him (cf. Mt 4:10); he wants to affirm, once again, that his mission is spiritual, not earthly, and that therefore it cannot be understood by using mere human criteria: it is governed by God’s designs, which were that Jesus should redeem us through his Passion and Death. So too, for a Christian, suffering, united with Christ, is also a means of salvation.
  • 34 When Jesus said “If any man would come after me . . .“, he was well aware that in fulfilling his mission he would be brought to death on a cross; this is why he speaks clearly about his Passion (vv:31-32). The Christian life, lived as it should be lived, with all its demands, is also a cross which one has to carry, following Christ.
    • Jesus words, which must have seemed extreme to his listeners, indicate the stan­dard he requires his followers to live up to. He does not ask for short-lived enthusiasm or occasional dedication; he asks everyone to renounce himself, to take up his cross and follow him. For the goal he sets men is eternal life. This whole Gospel passage has to do with man’s eternal destiny. The present life should be evaluated in the light of this eternal life: life on earth is not definitive, but tran­sitory and relative; it is a means to be used to achieve definitive life in heaven: “All that, which worries you for the moment, is of relative importance. What is of absolute importance is that you be happy, that you be saved” (J. Escrivá, The Way, 297).
    • “There is a kind of fear around, a fear of the Cross, of our Lord’s Cross. What has happened is that people have begun to regard as crosses all the unpleasant things that crop up in life, and they do not know how to take them as God’s children should, with supernatural outlook. So much so, that they are even removing the roadside crosses set up by our forefathers …
    • “In the Passion, the Cross ceased to be a symbol of punishment and became instead a sign of victory. The Cross is the emblem of the Redeemer: in quo est salus, vita et resurrectio nostra: there lies our salvation, our life and our resurrection” (J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross,II, 5).
  • 35 “Life”: in the original text and the New Vulgate the word literally means “soul.” But here, as in many other cases, “soul” and “life” are equivalent. The word “life” is used, clearly, in a double sense: earthly life and eternal life, the life of man here on earth and man’s eternal happiness in heaven. Death can put an end to earthly life, but it cannot destroy eternal life (cf. Mt 10:28), the life which can only be given by Him who brings the dead back to life.
    • Understood in this way, we can grasp the paradoxical meaning of our Lord’s phrase: whoever wishes to save his (earthly) life will lose his (eternal) life. But whoever loses his (earthly) life for me and the Gospel, will save his (eternal) life. What, then, does saving one’s (earthly) life mean? It means living this life as if there were none other — letting oneself be controlled by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (cf. 1 Jn 2:16). And losing one’s (earthly) life means mortifying, by continuous ascetical effort, this triple concupisence — that is, taking up one’s cross (v. 34) — and consequently seeking and savouring the things that are God’s and not the things of the earth (cf. Col 3, 1-2).

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