Humanity and Divinity

Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man 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. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Today we find ourselves at the halfway point of Mark’s Gospel.  Through these first 8 chapters Jesus has been showing the disciples WHO and WHOSE he was.  Mark’s Gospel starts with John the Baptist, Jesus’s Baptism, and the voice of God saying “You’re my Son!” In this moment Jesus is showing them his DIVINITY!  But IMMEDIATELY Jesus is pushed out into the desert to be tempted by Satan where a physically hungry and thirsty Jesus shows us his full HUMANITY. Okay.  Then Jesus walks by the sea, calls a few fishermen, teaches, casts out demons and heals Simon’s mother in law and when word gets out he heals the whole town. DIVINITY. Then while it was still dark he snuck out and went to a secluded place to pray and recover.  HUMANITY.  He then tried to move on to do more teaching but was stopped by a leper, whom he healed. DIVINITY. Then got thrown out of a temple for his teaching. HUMANITY. Told a paralytic to “Take up your mat and walk!” DIVINITY. Got in a theology fight with the Pharisees. HUMANITY. Healed a withered hand. DIVINITY. Went out to sea to get away. HUMANITY. Huge crowds follow and called him the SON OF GOD. DIVINITY. Fights with his family who thinks he’s crazy. HUMANITY. Heals a Demoniac. DIVINITY. Escapes in a Boat. HUMANITY. Heals a bleeding woman and raises a dead girl. DIVINITY. Gets rejected in his hometown. HUMANITY. Sends the disciples out to heal people and they did!  DIVINITY.  Grieves the brutal death of his friend John the Baptist. HUMANITY. Feeds five thousand! DIVINITY! Sends the disciples off and climbed a mountain to pray exhausted. HUMANITY. Walks on water. DIVINITY. Fights with the Pharisees and goes up North to get away. HUMANITY.  Calls a Syrophoenician woman the “D” word.  HUMANITY.  Comes around and heals her daughter and the old Jewish deaf man. DIVINITY. Escapes the crowd to get away to Caesarea Philippi. HUMANITY. Asks the disciples “Who do you say that I am” and Peter responds for the group and says “DIVINITY” and Jesus tells them he must suffer and die in his full… HUMANITY. Peter says “GOD FORBID YOUR HUMANITY” and Jesus says to Peter, “GET BEHIND ME SATAN!”

I know it’s a very obscure, hidden, difficult pattern to pick up in all of that but that’s why you have me!  It turns out that Jesus spends the first half of Mark’s Gospel going back and forth between showing his HUMANITY and then his DIVINITY and I think that was very much on purpose.  You see, I don’t know about you, but I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about how to do miraculous healings, raise the dead, or walk on water.  But, you know what I DO know a WHOLE LOT ABOUT?  Desert times.  Fights with bullies.  Family craziness and drama!  You and I can easily relate to being tired, worn, and not acting out of our best selves. You and I know all about trying to get some peace, only to be tracked down by a kid, an office, a genuine emergency, or a perceived emergency that turns out to actually just be a question about potato salad. You and I know what it is to be rejected. You and I know the real and deep pain of the death of someone we love. You and I know what it is to think about and face our own mortality. You and I… you know what it is we know?  We KNOW humanity!  

So, Jesus shows us HIS humanity, because THAT’s the part of Jesus that we can most easily recognize in ourselves… and in that connection, Jesus has offered us a door. A door through which we’re being invited over and over and over again to walk with Jesus from our very recognizable communion with Jesus in his humanity into the much more difficult to see, but just as real, communion with Jesus in his Divinity!

I think we’re being shown, over and over and over again the fullness of Jesus’s humanity so we can see ourselves in the person of Jesus. THEN, seeing ourselves in Jesus… Jesus becomes someone easy to relate to… easy to walk with… easy to live with, and then, as we walk with Jesus in his humanity, day after day, living as Jesus lived, trying our best to live with compassion, love, generosity and grace, we grow more and more deeply into the Jesus WAY of living and then eventually… we end up walking smack dab, right into the Truth.  The Truth, which is that we’re not ONLY sharing this life intertwined in Jesus’ humanity, but we’ve also been walking and living, intertwined the whole time in Jesus’ Divinity as well!

I think what Jesus is doing with all of this, is basically taking us all by the hand walking us all into what he prayed for us in John’s Gospel.  In John’s Gospel he prayed that we may all be One.  One with one another and One with God and here in Mark’s Gospel, he takes us by the hand of our humanity and walks us into the fulfillment of that prayer… into our place within God’s Divinity.   

Jesus meets us where we are, wherever we are, deep within our humanity, and in a generousness of love, grace, compassion and care, walks us into a LIFE filled with meaning, purpose, dignity and self worth.  And there, with our lives interwoven between humanity and divinity, Jesus helps us to discover that together we have all that we need to change the world into the what God created it to be.  So, let's go do it!  Amen.