“Would You Pick Him Out of a Crowd?”
Mark 8: 27-38 

In your bulletin you will find a small little booklet with pictures of Jesus done by various artists. Choose the picture you think most accurately portrays him. Of course, we do not know what Jesus looked like. We don’t know whether he was 5 foot 1 or 5 foot 8. We don’t know whether he had a beard or not. We don’t know the color of his hair or whether it was long or short either. We do know he lived -- not simply from the gospel accounts but from the contemporaneous historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote about a Jew named Jesus crucified by the Romans on a cross in Jerusalem during the time of Pontus Pilate.

With all due respect to the great European painters who painted portraits of Jesus over the centuries, he probably didn’t look northern or even southern European.  Moreover, he probably didn’t have black skin either. A best guess would be that he looked much like those men we see today on the streets of Amman, Jerusalem, and Damascus. But those painters cannot really be faulted. Most of us -- even eyewitnesses – see, not what is necessarily there, but what we expect or want to see or that with which we are familiar.  Nearly thirty years ago there was a horrible helicopter accident on Labor Day in Western Pennsylvania. A helicopter inexplicably descended slowly into the crowd killing 9 people. The key question for the authorities and in the private lawsuits that followed was what happened. Was it an equipment failure, pilot error or weather? The good news was that there were literally hundreds of eyewitnesses. And yet that proved less helpful than one might have expected. No two people saw the same final flight path. And on the crucial question whether the engine was running at the end the reports varied. The Viet Nam veterans in the crowd with experience in helicopters were often the most unreliable because they projected their past experiences on to those Labor Day events.

Often despite our best efforts, it is difficult for us not to see what we want or expect to see as opposed to what is truly before us. In the last Indian Jones movie the evil scientist (and there is one in every one of the movies) at the climax has to choose and then drink from the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper. This will -- so the story goes -- give the drinker immortality. He faces a table with dozens of cups of all shapes and sizes. He chooses finally the most ornate one with diamonds and rubies all over its gleaming gold sides. As the scientist horribly disintegrates before us, the old crusader who has protected the cup for centuries says, “He has chosen poorly.” He picked the one based on his hopes and expectations. Indy, of course, picks wisely -- ignoring glitter and gold -- he takes the ordinary wooden one.

The title of this sermon is “Would you pick [Jesus] out of a crowd?” Quite clearly, we would not be able to pick Jesus out of the crowd by his appearance. So how do we know him? Theodore Ferris, the Rector of Trinity Church in Boston during the last century, wrote, “The Christian religion begins, continues and ends in a man called Jesus.”[1] Thus, the single most important question that can be asked of us as Christians is – who is this Jesus?  That, of course, involves much more than what he looked like.     

As the gospel passage from Mark reveals this question has challenged followers from the very beginning. The crowd of followers in Mark identified Jesus as “John the Baptist…Elijah … or one of the prophets.”  To do this was high praise, indeed -- John the Baptist was revered – a prophet who took on the Roman authorities and heralded the coming of a Messiah who would bring a new wonderful age for the Jews.  A new Elijah -- he too was special –it was the prophet Elijah whose return was to foretell the coming of the Messiah. And, of course, if these followers see Jesus as the embodiment of Isaiah or Jeremiah – one of the prophets – that too meant he was considered to be an extraordinary person. The prophets after all were the most revered by the devout.

If you think about it, the crowd did what we might do. They projected on to Jesus what they expected and wanted. Each of their answers pointed to a special human being they believed offered them the hope of a better tomorrow and the fulfillment of the promises of the prophets. If Jesus was John or Elijah or one of the prophets then the coming of the Messiah and the new age were just around the corner. They saw what they wanted to see – miracles, healing, but they had not listened or wanted to hear   what Jesus had been saying to them about himself and the Kingdom of God.

And so Jesus more pointedly asks the disciples -- those who should know him, “But who do you say I am?” and Peter, ever eager – the brightest of the group answers quickly and assuredly – “You are the Messiah.”  And it seems he gets it right for Jesus simply says “keep it to yourself” – perhaps because the crowd of followers cannot yet understand.

“Messiah” in Hebrew means the anointed one and in Greek is translated “Christ”. The crowd thought Jesus was the herald of the one to come anointed by God.  But Peter knew Jesus was the one heralded. Does Mark end the conversation there? No! Peter it turns out only got it half right.

Peter was also guilty of seeing what he wanted to see. When Jesus said “I 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,” Peter was outraged. He rebuked Jesus – I can imagine their conversation.”

Peter: “Jesus snap out of it. You are the Messiah – the new David. You are going to lead an uprising and throw out the Romans and return control of the Promised Land to the chosen people where we will live as God’s people. Just like David did! Why should you have to suffer and die? You are the anointed one.” 

Jesus, of course, responds -- not simply that Peter is wrong -- but says something shocking!  “Get behind me Satan.  For you [Peter] are setting your mind not on divine but on human things.”

Peter saw what he wanted to see -- a new David not a suffering servant who was the son of God

  In this rebuke of Peter, Jesus is foreshadowing the inevitable coming of the passion.   Jesus was the Messiah to be sure but was also going to suffer and die for us. He would choose a cross not a crown and prove that the power of love is more important than the love of power.   And he would accept suffering and death to bring life.

Who is Jesus? The gospels tell us he is 
                        The son of Mary
                        The son of a carpenter
                        A doer of good deeds
                        A miracle worker
                        The champion of the poor and the oppressed
                        And finest human being to live.

So far Peter would agree but there is critically more.

He is also the anointed one of God who showed us as no human being could that love triumphs and that in death life prevails.

Theodore Ferris described Christ in these words --

[he] walked through life, loving life not death… When death came toward him he walked right though it and came out on the other side. He came back, not as he was but as he is. He is the Victor! He is the one who took the sting out of death. He didn’t take death away. He didn’t even take the pain of it away. … He did something greater; he took the fear away. Once death loses its power to frighten us it has no dominion over us. 

                        X                     X                     X

It is this last aspect of Jesus that I want to focus on in closing. As Christians we are to follow in Christ’s footsteps. Even if it isn’t easy, we can understand that we are to love our neighbors –even our enemies. Sitting down with the outcast and the shunned, we can get our minds around that. But what of this dying to live? Jesus said, "for those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake… will save it.” I expect most of us have a problem with this notion that we save our lives by dying. At best it sounds paradoxical and at worst impossible.

In an article in the Christian Century, Glenn Mitchell offers a helpful way of understanding this paradox. Perhaps Jesus did it but not us. It is not literally dying in order to live that Jesus urges. Rather in following the one who died for us   -- we are able to come to terms with our own mortality. When we accept the inevitability of our own death but that the love of God never dies as Christ revealed -- we are able to fully live – to exercise human freedom as our faith desires.

What does this mean for us in our lives? Perhaps an illustration might help. I played sports with an amazingly gifted athlete. He played every sport well and seemingly without effort -- except in a game. In competition he would become so tight from fear of failure – afraid of screwing up -- that he often failed to play well and lost many games and matches. Fortunately, a wise coach saw his talent and helped this young man to stop being afraid.   When he did his talent was liberated and he went on to be a star. Fear of death and fear of suffering can exert that same kind of pressure in our lives. In response to fear we attempt unsuccessfully to control our life and to fill it with things as if that will hold off the inevitable.

What Peter could not see that day outside of Caesar Philippe was who Jesus really was and what he represented for us. He did not understand that Jesus had to die so that we could find a new life in faith. That we too must die to our old way of living to find a new life as God wants us to live. 

When I was growing up we played every day with the kids next door. To us they were an ordinary family. Yet at some point something had had happened. The daughter and her father had become estranged. They did not speak for years. Then he was told that he had just a few months left to live. One day he picked up the phone and called her. That led to a meeting and ultimately to a reconciliation. After he died she was asked about her reconnection with her father. She said he simply told her that when he knew he was dying and no longer feared death, he realized he needed to let go and to put the unimportant – the grudges, the wounded pride -- aside and grab on to the important -- his love of his family.

Who is Jesus? He is many, many things but most of all he is that human being, yet Son of God, in whom we encounter God’s transforming love of us and the victory of life over death.   Amen