What kind of Messiah?

And he began to teach them that 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 three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked 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.”

34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Mark 8:31-38

Mark introduces a turning point in his gospel. Up until this point, his narratives focused on what Jesus had done, his growing fame, and speculation about who people believed him to be. Peter identified Jesus as Christ, but what does that even mean? Sure, he is the Messiah, but the Messiah of what? For what? What does a messiah do? From this point on, Jesus begins to teach us what kind of messiah he is—what it means for us to even have a messiah.

Everyone who believes in God has their own particular ideas about who God is and what God should do. The disciples were no different. They grew up under Roman oppression and prayed and waited for Christ to come to deliver them from bondage. Peter identifies Jesus as this long-awaited messiah, but he and his peers have no idea what kind of messiah he is. When Jesus informed them what this meant, that he would suffer and die, they were appalled.

Peter decides to set Jesus straight so he pulls Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him—schooling Jesus on what a good messiah should do (Lord, you’ve come to overthrow our Roman rulers). It’s easy to roll our eyes at Peter here–he’s so clueless–but Peter only verbalizes what we have all done or thought at times. “A savior should crush evil, not be crushed by it, right? A savior should deliver us from pain and not allow us to go through it, right?”

We may know Jesus as Christ. But are we willing to trust him to save us his way, instead of our own?