Sermon Tone Analysis
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Notes:
Questions:
You’ve heard the phrase, “Jesus is the Answer.”
As I was working on my dissertation, I came across the book “Jesus is the Question,” by Martin Copenhaver
Interesting insights:
Jesus asks 307 questions
Asked only 183 questions
Jesus only answers roughly 8 questions out of that 183
Point: “Jesus prefers to ask questions rather than to provide direct answers.
Jesus chooses to ask a question 307 times in the Gospel accounts.
Even if Jesus gives direct answers to as many as 8 questions, that still means that Jesus is almost 40 times more likely to ask a question than he is to give a direct answer.”
The King’s Questions: How Jesus’ questions form faith:
“What are you looking for?”
“But who do you say that I am?”
“Why do you not understand what I am saying?”
“Where is your faith?”
“Why could you not watch with me one hour?”
Probing questions, aren’t they?
307: Not spending the next 4 years or so focusing on another question… Some of the big ones over the next few months:
This morning: “Who do people say I am?”
Epiphany!
Celebrates the revelation that the Baby born was indeed the Son of God, God incarnate
Questions and Answers
Examples:
FIRST QUESTION: Who do people say I am?
Bit by bit, the first 8 chapters of Mark’s Gospel unpacks the answer to the question, Who is Jesus?
For example...
Mark 1, no one yet knows who Jesus is, but interestingly enough, the demons do.
One demon says: I know who you are- The Holy One of God! Jesus promptly tells the demon to shut his trap and he heals the man.
The crowd goes crazy and asks: “What is this?!!” Like, “What is this that this guys can speak with such authority?”
Mark 2: 7: Healing of the Paralytic, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
It’s a good question, right!?
Mark 3:11: More “unclean spirits” announcing Jesus’ arrival: “And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.’”
Mark 4:31: After Jesus tells the storm to shut its trap, the disciples shake in their wet sandals at what they just saw and said: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Jesus’ has been rightly revealed over and over and again, but Jesus finally turns the question around:
“Who do people say that I am?”
Jesus turns to his own disciples:
v. 28: Question: Who Do people say I am?
John the Baptist and Elijah?
Two very rational answers:
At this point in Jesus’ ministry, rumors are swirling about Jesus.
John the Baptist was a popular prophet- like a local celebrity preacher- and so the public nature of John’s death led some to believe that Jesus is back as John the Baptist incarnate.
Back from the dead for payback!
Others believed Jesus was more like the return of Elijah, which refers to the imminent arrival of Judgment Day! That’s no small event- and so rumors are swirling in Galilee and beyond about who Jesus is.
Jesus is fully aware of this Galilean rumor mill.
All the while, Jesus repeatedly rebukes demons for revealing who he truly was...
But these two answers aren’t accurate.
Jesus was not John the Baptist or Elijah incarnate...
What I love about this passage is how Jesus asks the question again...
The question is almost exactly the same, but the answer makes all the difference in the world:
“The Christ”
v. 28: BUT… who do you say that I am?
Ok, so answers are swirling around there, but are clearly wrong, but what say you Peter?
Peter shocks us by giving us that right response!
I wonder if all the other disciples were even surprised:
“Wow, Peter you said that without spitting out your sandal.
Well done!”
States it so Emphatically:
“You are the Christ!”
BUT, just like Jesus told the demons to keep their mouths shut, Jesus tells Peter to keep his mouth shut.
NO ONE MUST KNOW…
Defining the Christ
This second question and answer is extremely important for us to decipher:
What Peter said as “Christ” is totally different than what Jesus understood as “Christ.”
Sort of like when Mormans talk about ATONEMENT, or Seventh Day Adventists talk about GRACE, or Jehovah Witnesses talk about Jesus being GOD, the WORDS are the same, but their definitions aren’t.
When Peter said CHRIST, he mean something very specific...
About 50 years before Jesus was born, a concept of the Messiah or Christ really started ramping up, expressed in a popular book called the “Psalms of Solomon:”
O Lord, raise up their king, the son of David,
that he may reign over Israel thy servant.
Gird him with strength that he might shatter unrighteous rulers,
that he may purge Jerusalem from nations
that trample her to destruction.
Blessed be they that shall be in those days,
In that they shall see the good fortune of Israel which God shall bring to pass in the gathering together of the tribes.
May the Lord hasten His mercy upon Israel!
May He deliver us from the uncleanness of unholy enemies!
The Lord Himself is our king for ever and ever.
These verses go on and on, painting a picture of the coming Christ as, what?
A military leader.
It promoted hardline Israeli Nationalism: The expectant Messiah would look like a warrior- not a weakling- one who would forcefully drive out Rome and declare freedom for the sovereign state of God’s Country.
Definitions are important.
Words matter.
What we mean by the words we speak, matter...
We have strong internal evidence from our text that Peter’s definition of Christ was wrong:
v. 31: The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after thee days rise again.
Peter rebukes him…
[Pretend to pull Jesus aside]
“Jesus!
What are you saying?
You’re nuts.
Stop this.
I’m not following you so you’ll be rejected by the powers that be”
Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t respond privately.
v. 33: But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebukes Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan!
For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
The Father’s Answer
God Answers the question for us later on in our passage:
2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.
4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.
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