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The gospel of Mark is very much like a film. It starts by introducing the main characters and how they are involved in the story. After this has been adequately done, it goes at great speed through the main events that form the main character’s life. But after this, it suddenly stops at the turning point where the author wants to place emphasis. When we reach this point, the story seems to go in slow motion. In Mark’s gospel, the entire first half is packed with the events of what seems to be the three years of continuous ministry by Jesus. That’s seven and a bit chapters, or in the original Greek about 5800 words. Think about your last three years of life. Now think if you could describe the main events in that time in just under 6000 words. I don’t think that I could! If you think for a minute, we probably speak more than twice this amount every day! So Mark only chose what he thought were the most important events of those three years. Another technique Mark uses to speed through the first half of the gospel is his use of language. Mark’s Greek wasn’t very sophisticated, which isn’t surprising since it was his second language. But the way he used the particular Greek word for and, (kai) is interesting. He always seems to start his sentences with the word. In our translations, this is normally taken out because it’s bad writing style in English. But the effect it has is to push the story on at a quick pace.

When we get to chapter 8:27 the action of the gospel suddenly and dramatically changes pace. In film terminology, Mark gives us a freeze frame of Peter’s confession. After this, when the action starts moving again it is at a much slower pace. The last eight chapters deal with only a few weeks before Jesus’ ascension to heaven.

All of this shows us one very important thing that is essential for understanding not only this chapter of Mark but also the whole gospel. Mark is placing the focus of the gospel on chapter 8 verses 27 to 30. What’s so important about this passage? Let’s read it again. (Read 8:27-30).

So it’s Peter’s open confession of Jesus as the Messiah. In other words, until now no one had really grasped this fact. Even now, Peter doesn’t fully understand what he is saying. But what Mark has done is emphasised the fact that they finally knew who Jesus really was. I think that this is one of the most important themes in the whole gospel. Knowing Jesus is central to the gospel. I want to speak today about what knowing who Jesus was meant for Mark and what knowing who Jesus is means for us today.

If we had read the gospel in the way it was meant to be read, this fact about Jesus shouldn’t be a surprise to us readers. The gospels weren’t originally split up into chapter and verses. Rather, they were meant to be read all the way through in one sitting. Let’s take a quick look at why if we read the gospel properly we wouldn’t be surprised at Peter’s confession! Go back to Mark 8:1. Mark begins his gospel by telling us what he is going to show to us. He is going to describe the events of the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In English translations we might miss what Mark is saying. We are so used to the name “Jesus Christ” that we assume Jesus is his first name and Christ is his surname. You have to remember that “Christ” is the Greek term for Messiah. So when Mark says “Jesus Christ” he is saying “Jesus the Messiah”, exactly what Peter says in the middle of the gospel. So from the very start we should know exactly who Jesus is; he is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.

This is very interesting because one of the themes, which runs through the gospel, is ignorance. Mark’s use of the ignorance theme highlights again Peter’s confession. In Chapter 8 there are two main types of ignorance about who Jesus is. The worrying thing is that the line between the two is very thin indeed. We’ll look at the two types and how Mark uses the theme in this chapter.
The first type of ignorance is that of the Pharisees. In verse 11-13 they demand a sign from Jesus. At this time, there were many people who we call “messianic pretenders.” These ‘pretenders’ claimed that they were the messiah and they often tried to prove this by giving people miraculous signs. Some would say that they could part the waters of the Jordan in two.

Others would claim that they would make walls fall down with just a word. They obviously didn’t succeed in any of these claims! So, the way to test for the Messiah, it seemed, was to have some sign done by him. Jesus goes against this view and explicitly says that no sign would be given. The Pharisees were trying to test Jesus, to show him up as a fraud like those other pretenders. They didn’t believe that he was the Messiah! This ignorance is what I am going to call “total ignorance.” In other words, they knew about Jesus’ miracles and teaching but they simply refused to see Jesus for who he really was; they completely missed who Jesus is.

Again, Mark is being very clever here. In most of the miracles which precede this story, the participants are shown to have faith in Jesus without really knowing who he is. These people were ordinary people unlike the Pharisees who were supposed to be the teachers of the people. While the people had faith and were healed, the Pharisees had no faith and so received no sign. What I think Mark is doing here is to show that Jesus didn’t come to give signs and prove who he was. His identity would become clear through his teaching and miracles and it would only become clear to those who weren’t looking for a sign. The Pharisees were totally ignorant while those simple people who were seen as ignorant had clarity!
The second type of ignorance is that of the disciples of Jesus. In many ways, this ignorance is worse than that of the Pharisees. They had been with Jesus for three years and still they seemed to be ignorant of who he was. The first miracle in this chapter, namely the feeding of the 4000, is a good example of their ignorance. Mark has shown a similar story before where Jesus miraculously fed 5000 people. The worrying thing is that even after having seen Jesus feed 5000 people before, the disciples still didn’t trust him. They had seen him do it before! Why, now, would they be worried about how the people were going to be fed?! They had still not understood who Jesus was; they underestimated him once again!

But the disciple’s ignorance is shown in even clearer terms in verses 14 to 21. Jesus really gives them a hard time in this passage! He tells them to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. They misunderstand and think he is talking about bread again, when he is really talking about the teaching of the Pharisees. So he rebukes them saying “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” Ouch! Not only is Jesus telling them off but also he uses a quote from the Old Testament to do it! It comes from Jeremiah 5:21 and in its original context refers to God’s rebuke of an unbelieving Israel. What Jesus is saying here is that even though the disciples have seen his miracles and had heard his teaching they had not understood! They still didn’t know who he was! This must have been very disheartening for Jesus. Put yourself in his situation; you spend three years or more teaching someone, showing them who you are and they still get the wrong idea!

So, what’s the difference between the two types of ignorance? I think that Mark again shows his skill by placing a story after the two main events which outlines his thoughts. The record of Jesus healing the blind man was not put where it is by accident; Mark clearly had reasons for putting there. I think that the miracle tells us the difference between the two types of ignorance. But before I outline my theory let me just say that the healing of the blind man is primarily about that, i.e. the healing of a man who was blind. We should not look into it so deeply that we miss the obvious meaning of the record. However there is another level of meaning. In the record, Jesus takes a shot at healing the man, but after the first try the man only has partial vision. He looks around, sees people walking around, and thinks they look like trees! So Jesus does the same thing again and this time the man’s vision was totally restored. Why did it take Jesus two attempts to heal the man? There are other stories (like John 9) where Jesus heals a blind man with one attempt. I think there is a reason for this detail and that is to show the difference between the Pharisees and the disciples. The man’s original state was blindness; this is being paralleled with the Pharisees inability to see just who Jesus is. Then Jesus puts the mud on the man’s eyes and he gets partial vision; this is being paralleled with the disciples’ inability to see the full picture of who Jesus is, but only seeing a fuzzy outline. So Mark shows the difference between the Pharisees’ ignorance and the disciples’ ignorance; the former group are completely ignorant and the latter are only partially ignorant.

I said before that the line between the two types of ignorance is very thin. If we look at it in terms of vision, there is not a great difference between blindness and partial vision. What Jesus is saying to the disciples is that unless they come to see him clearly, they will end up blind like the Pharisees.

But there is one more state of vision to mention – that of complete vision. The final stage was complete healing of the man, meaning he could see perfectly; this is the state that the disciples should aim for, a perfect view of who Jesus really is. It is important to note, however, that this level of vision only came because Jesus gave it to the man. In the same way, they could only receive this ‘sight’ as a gift from Jesus.

The disciples seem to learn from this rebuke that Jesus gives them. After the record of the healing of the blind man, Mark records Peter’s confession. Jesus comes straight to the point and asks the question which is still relevant for us today: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter responds by saying that “You are the Christ.” At last! They are beginning to understand just who Jesus is. It has taken them three years to get to this point! This is where the story turns. Now that Jesus’ identity has been revealed by a disciple, the story begins to slow down, aiming towards the end. It is now time for the final scene to be played out.

It would be nice if this were where the chapter ended. But, as with life, things are never that neat! Peter, on a high after revealing who Jesus is, falls at the very next hurdle! After the confession, Jesus begins to teach the disciples about how he would suffer, die and be raised again. But Peter could not accept this – he took Jesus to one side and rebuked him. Jesus responded by rebuking Peter saying, "Get behind me, Satan!" Oh dear! It was all going so well for Peter, but he seems to have slipped back into his old partially sighted way of looking at Jesus.

So, we have seen that for Mark, knowing who Jesus is, is very important. It is of vital importance to us too. We will look now at some ways in which the way we see Jesus impacts us.
There are many reasons why we need to know who Jesus is. I won’t have time today to outline them all. I would encourage you to think through for yourself why knowing Jesus is central to our whole lives. But, let’s look at some of the key reasons.

Firstly, knowing who Jesus is allows us to trust him. Before we will serve a person we have to trust them. For example, if you were in the army, you have to trust in your commander before you will obey his or her orders. We want to serve Jesus in our lives, but before we can we need to trust him. Before we can trust him, we need to know who he is.

Secondly, knowing who Jesus is allows us to transform our way of thinking. The goal of any Christian, in the words of the apostle Paul, is to have the same way of thinking as Christ Jesus. This means being like him, thinking like him, acting like him and so on. How can we do any of this if we don’t know who Jesus is?

Next, knowing who Jesus is allows us to tell others. One of the primary callings for all Christians is to share our experiences of Jesus with others. Jesus sent the disciples out to preach the good news and as followers of the same Jesus we are expected to do the same. Before we can tell people who Jesus is we have to know ourselves. This is not simply just saying some facts about his life, teaching etc. It means telling people about relationship with Christ Jesus, the living Messiah. It means telling people about how relationship with Jesus changes our lives.

Lastly, knowing who Jesus is allows us to take our identity from him. The modern condition is one of a profound lack of identity. People just don’t know who they are anymore. We try to find identity in things that change, for example, in our physical appearance, in the way friends view us and so on. This leads to a constantly changing sense of who I am. But, if we identify we Jesus, then we have a fixed point of reference. If we define who we are in relationship with him then we will be more stable. But to do this we need to know who Jesus is. When we find this out we start to find out who we are as well.

So I am going to leave you with one question: If Jesus asked you the question “Who do you say that I am?” would you be able to answer him?
 

Amen.

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