by God’s providence that we come to this text on Palm Sunday, as it serves as a perfect beginning to our Holy Week observances, and the next passage, verses 31-33, will be a great place to end with our Easter celebration. As we work through this passage today, I hope you will search out the answer to the question at its core: who do you say Jesus is? Is he a good teacher? Do you find his morality to be exceptional? Or, maybe he is your therapist? Perhaps you find his teachings encouraging? Or, he may be a political rallying cry to you. Do you think, we need Jesus in America to bring us back to a golden age. Or, is Jesus your king? I hope you will search for the answer to that question in your heart as we study today. Let’s begin by reading Mark 8:27-30. From this passage, see two points: Useful Gods and the Undeniable Messiah.
First, from verses 27-28, see the useful gods. Mark tells us that Jesus leaves the region of Bethsaida and heads north to the villages of Caesarea Phillippi. This would have been a 25-mile hike to the base of Mount Hermon. Caesarea Phillippi was the capital of the region, which was ruled by Herod Phillip. Because it was the capital of a Roman vassal state, it was a majority Gentile region, and it had a long track record of pagan worship. In ancient history, it was called Baal-Gad, the furthest northern town of the nation of Israel. Even then, it was notorious for its pagan worship of the Canaanite god, Baal. After the Greek conquest, it became entirely Greek and was renamed Paneas. The Greeks believed that it was the birthplace of the god, Pan – the god of fertility and wildlife. There was a temple to Pan built into the side of Mount Hermon that included a grotto with a deep cave system. Through the years, the Greeks had carved shrines to other gods into the cliffs of Hermon, so that the backdrop of the city was a host of gods and goddesses. Worship of Pan was particularly vile, especially to the Jews. Because he was the god of fertility, his worship involved cult prostitution, orgies, and even bestiality. It was so vile to the Jews that they’d taken to calling the city of Caesarea, “the gates of Hades”, and they would not dare set foot there.
When Phillip took over the tetrarch, he decided to suck up to Rome by changing the name of the city to Caesarea, in honor of Caesar Augustus. And, to brown-nose even more, he built a temple to Caesar. Beginning with Julius Caesar, the Romans adopted the practice of deifying their emperors. This was a fairly common practice in most countries of the ancient world because kings served as the representative of the gods on earth. So, the Roman government didn’t just require its subjects to submit to the rule of the emperor, but they also had to worship him as a god. Once a year, they were required to offer a sacrifice to Caesar in his temple, along with their yearly income tax. When they did, they would declare, “Caesar is Lord”. If you refused to do so, you would lose all economic privileges and might even be at risk of execution. In their temples and on their coins were minted the words, “Caesar Augustus, Son of God.”
I explain all of this to set the scene for what Jesus is about to ask. Imagine Jesus, walking along a ridge with his disciples, opposite of Caesarea Phillippi. And, suddenly, he stops to ask a question. Over his shoulders, the disciples can see statues of Pan, Echo, and Nymphs. They’re distracted by a farmer who is fighting against a goat as he leads it up the hill to Pan’s Grotto to offer as a sacrifice in hopes that his wheat might grow this year. They gaze down in the valley towards the temple to Caesar Augustus and see the long line of citizens queued to pay their taxes and offer their incense so they can obtain their business license for another year. With these images before them, Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”
The disciples scramble to answer with good Sunday school answers: John the Baptist, Elijah, or another of the prophets like Jeremiah. Their answers betray the beliefs of the crowds - those masses of people who had met Jesus at every turn. Crowds had come to see him cast out demons. They’d gathered to hear him teach. They’d sought him for more food. But each time, Jesus had turned them away. Why? I want to suggest two reasons that are both implicit and explicit in the setting and the disciples’ answer. First, many people pursue religion and faith for its usefulness, not out of love and devotion to God. The backdrop of Caesarea reveals this. People would trudge up the cliffs with their goats to Pan’s grotto and drop it down the cave, not because they loved Pan or wanted to submit to his will, but because they needed something from him. Men would gather in the temple to Caesar, not because they believed he was “Son of God” and made heartfelt confession that he was Lord, but because they wanted to sell fish at the market. Do you use Jesus in this way? Do you think, “Well, if I put on my Christian mask around Mama, she won’t give me such a hard time about church.” Or, maybe you think that church is important because it serves a social good and keeps you connected with important people in the community. Using Jesus is not the same thing as submitting to him as king.
Second, the Jews saw their Messiah in much the same light. To them, the Messiah would be a great conqueror who would vanquish all of Israel’s oppressors and establish an eternal kingdom where the Jewish people would rule over the whole earth. Their Messiah would be a mighty warrior, a shrewd politician, and a wise king. He would not come from the stock of peasants. He would not mingle with the sinners and tax collectors. He would not reject the traditions of the elders. He certainly would not select fishermen and zealots to be his disciples. But then, here is Jesus, and he checks so many of the boxes of the Messiah. He makes the blind to see and the lame to walk. The demons fear him, and he even raises the dead. So, he must be something extraordinary… but he can’t be the Messiah. He must be a prophet – certainly, a great prophet. Do you use Jesus in this way? Like Thomas Jefferson, do you cut out the parts of the Bible that you don’t like? Do you say, “My Jesus would never…”? Do you create a box for Jesus so tight that he will not fit? Creating a Jesus that you can stomach is not the same thing as submitting to him as king.
This leads me to my second point: The Undeniable Messiah, from verses 29-30. After they’ve suggested some common beliefs about who Jesus is, he then makes the question personal by asking, “who do you say that I am?” At this question, Peter proclaims, “You are the Christ.” In this statement we find the pinnacle of Mark’s Gospel. Mark has not used this word, “Christ”, in his Gospel since the very first verse, where he told us, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Now, everything will build around this word until chapter 14:61, when on trial before the Sanhedrin, they ask Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” At that question, Jesus will answer, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Hearing this, the high priest tore his rob and shouted, “What further witnesses do we need? You have heard this blasphemy?” You see, they were fine with Jesus being a good teacher. They were fine with him being a great prophet. They were even fine with him being the resurrected John the Baptist. But they could not abide the fact that he was the anointed one of Israel, the promised Messiah. Neither could Pilate abide it. In 15:2, Pilate cuts to the heart of the charges against him by asking, “Are you the king of the Jews?” To this, Jesus says, “You have said so.” With this admission, there is no way that Pilate can let him go. There can be only one Lord and King. The temple to Caesar demands it. You must confess, “Caesar is Lord.” To say otherwise is not just treason; it’s blasphemy. It was necessary, in Pilate’s mind, not just to execute Jesus, but to mock him while he did. So, once Jesus was hanging on the cross, Pilate played a prank by having a sign made that declared, in three languages, “King of the Jews.” As he hung there, the religious leaders would mock, “If he is the Christ, why does he not come down?”
Yet, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One. He is the Son of God, and the only one who deserves to be called Lord. Israel could not see it because they wanted to make the Messiah in their own image. The Romans would not believe it because they could not use him for their own benefit. Jesus Christ will not be shaped into what we want. Instead, he would go to the cross to offer up what we need – redemption through his blood. And, he would defeat death by rising on the third day, proving himself to be the king over all things. So, I end as I began, by asking the same question that the disciples faced: who do you say Jesus is?
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