Today’s first reading is another prophecy from Isaiah. In the famous “Servant Songs,” the speaker describes his calling as God’s chosen servant and his determination to obey God’s will despite the sufferings that will follow: “I gave my back to those who beat me…my face, I did not shield from buffets and spitting.” Despite this humiliation, the servant is “not disgraced” because “the Lord GOD is [his] help.” He has “set [his] face like flint”—nothing will deter him from the fulfillment of God’s will.  

Christian tradition reads the “Servant Songs” as prophecies. In today’s gospel from Mark, Jesus and his disciples are traveling near the villages of Caesarea Philippi, on the road that led toward Jerusalem. In a parallel account from Luke, we are told that at this time Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” knowing it would result in his Passion and death. Symbolically, then, the journey to Jerusalem represents a determination to do God’s will in the face of suffering, rejection, and even death.  

The disciples, and especially Peter, do not yet grasp this truth. While Peter boldly acknowledges Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, he does not yet know that the Messiah must be a suffering servant. When Jesus begins to speak to his disciples that the Messiah must “suffer greatly” and “be rejected” and “be killed, and rise after three days,” Peter rebukes him. Surely the long-awaited hope of Israel could not be killed by his own people!  

But Jesus rebukes Peter in turn, as an adversary (Satan) attempting to sway him from doing the will of God. If the Messiah is willing to accept the cross, so too must his followers. To human thinking, the cross is defeat, but Jesus reveals that it is actually a victory: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” Let us pray this week for the strength to walk toward Jerusalem, toward the cross, with Jesus—no matter the cost.  

Reflection by Parishioner Kathryn Wilmotte