Well, this morning I want us to look at some “rebuking” that goes on in Mark 8. Jesus says, “…the son of man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected. . .and be killed, and after three days rise . . .” Mark adds, “He said all of this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and rebuked him.”
Stay with me. Mark says, “Jesus turning and looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me Satan!’”
Now, there is a rebuke! Think about the LOOK that Jesus gave Peter. Did you ever get one of those LOOKS from your mother or father? Or your spouse?
When my father had died, we moved from one side of Wichita Falls to another and my mother was trying to keep food on the table for three little boys. One day a man came to our front door and said, “We are moving a house down your street and we won’t be able to move past your house unless we cut the tree down in your yard. “I’m willing to give you $50.00 for that tree.” My mother said, “Did you notice that it was a pecan tree?” Before the man could respond, I piped up and said, “Oh, that tree has never had any pecans on it!”
Talk about a look. . .talk about a look of rebuke. . .I don’t remember whether they cut the tree down or not, but I’ll always remember that look of rebuke from my mother!
So, Peter rebukes Jesus. Then Jesus lets him have it with both a LOOK and a MESSAGE.
Last Sunday I told you about a man who wrestled with God and lived to tell about it. Today we are looking at another man of faith, Peter. He is the one who says, “You will not wash my feet,” and then he beseeches Jesus, “Lord, wash me from head to toe.”
In other words: the man on whom the Christian church is founded is just like you and just like me. There is the self-assertive, egocentric personality, all fumbles, follies, wild gestures, fantastic schemes, and, then in time, would you believe, out steps a man of faith, vision, dreams, courage and self-forgetful love.
As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “When Christ established his great society, he chose for the cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, and a coward, in a word, an ordinary man. And upon this rock he built his church, and the gates of hell have not prevailed against it.”1
So, I want to ask this morning, as T.S. Elliot did in a poem, a very difficult question, “Who is that on the other side of you?”2 Who is that on the other side of you, Peter?
Simon Peter is a case study in the duality of human personality. On the one hand, the brave, bold man of faith, trusting where he cannot see, learning humbly to pray, casting his net for mysterious fish. But the same man, Simon Peter, walks on water, averts his eyes from Jesus, and sinks into the sea!
The Bible is filled with case studies of interesting people. We learned last Sunday that Jacob with all his arrogance and his aggressiveness did not stop God from blessing him. Who is on the other side of Jacob – Israel!
In looking at Peter, can we discover who is that on the other side of you and me?
When confronted with suffering, Peter has an immediate reaction – he rebukes the situation!
· When Jesus speaks of his suffering and his death – Peter rebukes him!
· When the soldier steps forward to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter cuts his ear off.
In both instances, we see a flash of rebuke from Peter. Perhaps for either Peter or us, this jingle was written: “When things went well, he looked swell; when things went bad, he looked sad.3
So here we are in church. Did you come to church today discouraged or angry or resentful or sad? So, I ask again, “Who is that on the other side of you?”
Someone once asked Socrates why Alcibiades, a brilliant and charismatic Athenian, was such a deeply unhappy man. Socrates replied, “Because wherever he goes, he takes Alcibiades with him.”
Jesus Christ entered Peter’s life and broke that spell and a new man emerged. Perhaps someone here this morning is lying down in the failures of life. Maybe mistakes have piled up on you and you are lying in a valley of shadows.
Christ is very near to you this morning. Maybe he has never been closer to you than he is right now; and, if you listen, you can hear him asking you a question that you really ought to answer: “Who is that on the other side of you?”
Psychologist Erik Erickson likes to tell the story of a rabbi who felt inhibited when asked to make a speech in heaven. He said, “I am good only at rebuke!” The rabbi is not alone. Many of us re trained to define ourselves by what we oppose rather than what we might advance.
In the classic Groucho Marx film, Horse Feathers, Groucho prances around in his academic cap and gown, singing this ditty:
“Whatever you do,
Whatever you say,
However you may amend it-
I’m against it. . .
Even when you’ve altered and condensed it,
I’m against it.4
If you find yourself leading a life of rebuke, if you are lying down in a dark valley, if you are all but dead to a side of you that has been crusted over by trouble, then this is the Word of God for you this morning:
As Jesus said to Peter in his dismay at Caesar Philippi: “The purpose of your life now is to find the rest of it!”
Who is that on the other side of you?
· On the other side of Jacob, there was Israel.
· On the other side of Simon, there was Peter.
· On the other side of Levi, there was Matthew.
· On the other side of Saul, there was Paul.
Who is that on the other side of you?
Let no mistake or sorrow of the past bar you from the glorious adventure of finding the answer to that question.
Amen
___________________
Notes:
1 Paglia, Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), p. 34.
2 Quoted in David Marr, Patrick White: A Life (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 481
3 Ross, Lent II, Sermon preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron, Ohio, March 3, 1985.
4 Cheever, as quoted in Rust Hills,
How Writers Live Today, Esquire, August, 1984, p. 37.
