Into the Wilderness w/ Brad Turnage W4

Anthony: All right. Our final pericope of the month is Mark 8:31- 38. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday of Easter Prep / Lent, which is February 25. Brad, do us the honors, please.

Brad: Sure.

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. ³² He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³ 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.” ³⁴ He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ 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. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸ 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.”

Anthony: Not today, Satan! Poor Peter. This is the second time in our conversation that we see him getting it wrong.

Let’s not waste it. What can we learn from this interaction with Jesus? And why did Jesus rebuke Peter so strongly? And what does that rebuke teach us about the ways of Christ?

Brad: Before we talk about this rebuke of Peter—because it’s maybe the harshest thing Jesus ever says to Peter, and maybe he says to anybody. Get behind me, Satan.

But I want to give Peter credit. Literally just moments before this, Jesus gives Peter maybe the highest praise he’s given anyone in the Gospels. Just a few verses before Jesus says, get behind me, Satan is when Peter confesses Christ and Jesus says, yes, and this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father. And from now on, Peter, I’m going to call you my rock, and I will build my church on you and the gates of hell will not keep it out.

I want to bring that up because I just love how Jesus lets the good be the good and the bad be the bad, right? He holds onto both of these things. So, in one moment that Peter gets it, he finds this beautiful response from Jesus. And the fact that Peter’s about to blow it, does it change what Jesus just said? And I think that’s so important because we go through our life and we have these moments where God calls us into his work and says, I’m going to do something with you. And then we blow it. And we’ve got to be able to, in those moments, shake it off and go all right, that doesn’t change what else Jesus has said and what else Jesus has called me to.

But this get behind me Satan that he says to Peter, I think it’s more than just calling out Peter. I think we have to go back to the wilderness, right? I think Peter’s doing exactly what Satan was doing to Jesus in the wilderness.

He’s trying to get Jesus to use his power in a different way. Peter’s saying, Jesus, you have the power to save the world without all this death and dying nonsense. That’s Satan. So, when Jesus says, get behind me, Satan, I think he’s talking to Satan more than Peter because what Peter’s doing is that same thing that we see Satan in the wilderness doing and trying to control the way that Jesus is going to change the world.

And Jesus is not going to have any of that because the only way to fix the curse of sin—Paul says the wages of sin is death. What we earn from our sin is death. The only way we’re going to fix it is through going all the way into that death and then resurrecting it.

And for Peter, there’s no way to saving the world that doesn’t involve Jesus’ death and resurrection. And we see that moment Jesus rebukes him, but I think it’s more this rebuking of what Satan is always trying to do, which is to have us not trust the real way that God is going to change the world and change us.

Anthony: Yeah. And Peter’s going to give you a big old hug in the fullness of the kingdom for coming to his aid and reminding us that the good is good and the bad is bad.

And we all participate in it. That’s a good way of looking at it. Get behind me, Satan. So I’m looking at the verses 35 – 38, and in my mind, it’s filled with juxtaposition. Maybe you see it too. So how would you Christologically preach this portion of the text? What say you?

Brad: I think Christologically, you just point to Jesus, because this is exactly how Jesus lived, right? He says those who want to save their life will lose it. Jesus loses his.

So, everything that Jesus is saying here that feels like juxtaposition (sorry, had a hard time saying that one) is because the kingdom really is upside down and backwards. And so, you point to Jesus, you point to all the ways that it’s upside down and backwards. You point to the fact that Jesus shows up in a time of history that he has such a small—in terms of at least globally—impact, right?

How far did Jesus travel from his home? Probably not as far as we’ll travel to visit family for Christmas. It’s upside down and backwards to think that’s the moment that God chooses to send his Savior into the world. You would have thought it would have been in a time where that person would be on TV, where that person would be able to get the message out in this big way.

You would have expected that it wouldn’t have been a—Jesus was basically a homeless man for the time of his ministry. That is upside down and backwards. The fact that Jesus says, love your enemies, the fact that Jesus forgives his enemies, even on the cross is so not the way that we would assume that any God of any taste would behave, but that’s the way our God is.

And so, what does that look like? It looks like giving away our lives and trusting that though it seems upside down and backwards, that really is the place where we’ll find life. And again, I think it’s because if we’re not doing that, then we’re not giving God the room to work. We’re not giving the Holy Spirit the space to do something meaningful because we’re holding onto that steering wheel and not letting go and letting him lead.

Anthony: Yeah, and I’m looking at verse 38, Brad, and if I’m being real with myself, there’ve been times where I’ve been ashamed of Jesus and his words, especially out of my ignorance. And it says that the Son of Man will be ashamed. What do I take away from that? Where’s the good news there?

Brad: So, in 38, “those who are ashamed of me and of my words.” I think in those moments, Anthony, I think you’ve got to, you got to just be really honest that you still have this duality of the old and the new. And the old self, we’ve died with Christ and in one sense, the old self is dead, but it’s a ghost. It has no future, but it’s still ghosting around.

And then the new self is the self that is really alive. And we live with both of these realities. I think that yeah, Jesus is [saying], your old self is the one that’s ashamed. And that’s why we have to put that old self away once and for all, and to disconnect the real you from the false you. And every day my old self makes himself known and but as I’ve gotten older, the more that I’m able to trust that that part of me is the part of me that when I’m dead is going to stay dead.

It’s not the real me. It’s the ghost of my old self. It’s the ghost of Adam. My life really is hidden in my new self, which is in Christ. It’s easy to think that our lives are this zero sum, that as I grow in faith, I become more righteous and less sinful and maybe the good Christian life is getting to 75 percent righteous and 25 percent sinful.

But the more I’ve been honest with myself, the more I think I’ve come to understand Scripture. The truth is my old self is 100 percent dead in sin. There is nothing of real life in my old self. The darkness is really dark. The evil is really evil. And my new self is 100 percent in Christ, resurrected and righteous.

And these two things they have nothing to do with one another, except that they’re both inside this person whose name is Brad. And so, when my old self kind of leads me into falling into sin or saying that thing, I just put it in its place and I’ll say, that’s not me. That’s not the real me and I think that’s what we have to do. I think in our death, once and for all, God will get rid of that old self in our death and then we really will be in the fullness of God’s creation made manifest.

Anthony: Hallelujah that the lying Anthony won’t inherit the kingdom of God. That the one that was ashamed of Jesus’ words won’t inherit the kingdom of God. And I so liked the metaphor you use of ghosting. Wasn’t it Martin Luther that said, the old man was buried in the water, but I found out that old wretch can swim, and he keeps showing up in my life, right?

Brad: And if we have time, I would love to tell you this story. One time I was teaching Colossians to a group of high school students. Colossians 3 has this language about the old self where it says, on account of these things, God’s wrath will be pulled poured out.

And I asked my students, I said, is there anybody that you would love to see God’s wrath poured out on? And they were like, no, how can you say that? And I said, there’s somebody in this room I would love for God’s wrath to be poured out on. And they were like, Brad, how can you say that? And I was like, yeah, and it’s me. At least it’s the part of me that is still struggling with sin.

It’s that old self I want God’s wrath to be poured out on my old self because if it’s not, and my old self gets into the kingdom once and for all, he’s going to ruin it for everybody else. As I live trying to follow Christ and that old self still gets in the way and still causes me to feel ashamed and question and get lazy and gets in the way of what God wants to do, yeah, bring your wrath on that part of me, God and kill it and let it stay dead forever. I’m okay with that.

Anthony: I am too, brother. I have always enjoyed our friendship and your exegesis of Scripture. And this has just been a fun conversation, brother, around Scripture, something we both love. So, thank you for doing this.

And I also want to thank the team of people that make this podcast possible. We couldn’t do it without them. Reuel Enerio and David McKinnon and Elizabeth Mullins. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your labor of love in service to Christ with Gospel Reverb.

And Brad, it’s our tradition to end with prayer. We’d love to ask you to do it, but thanks again for being a part of this. I really enjoyed it.

Brad: Sure. And thank you for letting me just come here and talk about scripture and Jesus. I love being with you, Anthony, and I really appreciate what you’re doing here. So, let’s pray.

Father God, thank you that you’re the God that resurrects the dead, that you’re the God that brings new life, and that because of your life, death, and resurrection we can experience reality. We can experience your kingdom even here and now, Lord.

So, help us do just that, Lord. Help us learn how to die to ourselves. Help us learn how to let go of those things that we are giving our lives over to, Lord. And let go so that in Christ we might live for the sake of the world. And that the world might see you through your people, Lord.

So, use us to be your light in the world. Lord, use the people that are listening to this to be your light in the world, that their communities, that their workplaces, wherever they are, Lord, people might know you and experience your great love through them. We pray all this in your holy name. Amen.