Hi everyone, welcome back to our podcast, where we take a look at the Gospel reading from today's mass and we're all about doing exegesis year. So that's the level of Bible analysis where we really get into the text itself, the literal sense of the text. What was the Gospel author, trying to communicate to his original audience? That's the level. We want to focus on here, rather than going into Systematic Theology, or how it applies. Today. In this podcast, we want to
focus on the ground level stuff. What does it mean? On the literal sense? Which is where we should always start, according to the teaching of the Catholic church. So today we're looking at, Mark 8:34, through 9:1. Jesus called the people and his disciples to him and said if anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, but anyone who loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel will save it. What game then is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin his life? And indeed, what can a man offer in exchange for his life?
For if anyone in this adulterous and sinful generation is ashamed of me. And of my words, the son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his father with the Holy Angels. And he said to them, I tell you solemnly there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God. Come with power. So, once again, are quite well-known passage here, Jesus has some quite strong words to use. So let's think about the
context, what's just happened? So, Jesus has just announced to the apostles that he's going to die. And remember Peter said, no Lord, you won't die. And he rebuked him for it. And then and then Jesus said, you are speaking in the ways of men not in the ways of God. So he's explained that he is going to suffer. And he now goes on to explain to the crowds that they will also share in his Suffering if they become his followers. So verse 34, at the start here, Jesus called the people and his
disciples to him. Notice, this is not a private message for the disciples. It's an invitation to the entire crowd. He's actually about to speak quite openly to the crowd up to. Now in the gospel of Mark, has been fairly cryptic in his Parables when he's been talking to the crowds, but now it's going to be quite open. So he says to the crowds, if anyone wants to be a follower of
mine. So in that culture, it was quite common for Jews to pick a rabbi to follow if they like the preaching of someone they would follow them. So Jesus says, if you want to be my follower, now notice the language here, if you want to be a follower. So this implies what he goes on to say, then you have to do excetera. Etc. So Jesus is saying that it's not automatic. It's not, you're not born into it. As a cultural thing. Jesus is Asking for a radical
decision. If you want to be a follower of mine, then you must do these things. And it's quite a radical decision as well. See he says If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself. So renounce there is actually a legal term, which signifies complete disarmament, so it's not just like a ceremonial thing. I renounce myself in that culture, it was a legal thing to renounce was a complete disarmament.
So Jesus, here does not mean as we often hear in sermons just to let go of selfishness and attachment. It probably does imply that as part of it, but in the original context, he's talking about it. Radical complete abandonment to him, even to the point of being willing up to willing to give up your life. He says, He must take up his cross and follow me. So when Jesus says, take up his cross, we need to remember. Jesus wasn't the first person ever to be crucified in the Roman Empire?
They were quite familiar with crucifixion. The Romans killed Jews, pretty much Everyday by crucifixion. So, Jesus audience would have been quite familiar with this idea of picking up your big heavy cross and carrying it through the town. It was quite a gruesome quite quite a gruesome image and no one wanted to go through that. No. I wanted to take up their cross. So what does Jesus mean? When he says to take up your
cross he probably means. You need to be willing to make sacrifices and bear, heavy burdens just as I am. He says, follow me, follow me and take up your cross. So Jesus says his followers, must be willing, not only to follow him in Miracles and things like that. But also to experience suffering as he's about to experience suffering, So, the main point Jesus is said so far, he's been trying to communicate to his audience.
Is that discipleship? Being a disciple of Jesus has radical Demands a Demands, a person's entire self. He now introduces the language of life. So he says, anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, this could have a couple of different meanings because the Greek word for life is psyche. Psyche, which can mean Soul. So Jesus could be saying one of two different things. Or maybe both depending on how he intended, the word psyche, to
be understood. So firstly he could be talking about physical life as in his the warning against denying him at the point of death. Anyone who wishes to save his life, you can imagine someone at the point of the sword wanting to save their life. So they deny Christ. He says those people will lose their life. One has to be willing up willing, to give up their physical life to be a disciple of Jesus. And we know that many in the early church had to do that.
They had to be willing to give up their life, many did die for their faith. And Jesus might feel for seeing that. He could also mean it in a more, I guess, spiritual or Eternal sense. Something like this his warning against worldliness and self-protection. So he's saying that if you're just attached to worldly things and attached to yourself then that's It's going to lead to Eternal death, so it could mean
either physical life. If you try and preserve your physical life, you're going to lose it on a life. Or he could mean if you try and preserve worldliness and selfishness in your own life, then you'll lose eternal life. The consequence is the same. Either way if you don't follow the right principle here, you will lose your eternal life. Notice this is a teaching that you can lose your salvation. Obviously, that's developed in more detail in other passages.
But Jesus, here is saying that, if you want eternal life, there are certain things you have to do. He then goes on anyone who loses his life, for my sake, and the sake of the Gospel. So, Jesus here is probably referring to people being martyred which we know did happen or maybe even. He means people who are willing to give up their entire life and their possessions The only way to preserve oneself is to give oneself away to Jesus.
So anyone who loses his life, for my sake, and the sake of the Gospel will save his life. So Jesus is the only way to truly preserve your life. Truly in terms of eternal life is to give oneself away to Jesus. Whether that means giving up your life physically, or giving up your possessions. All of those things might be encompassed in what Jesus is saying. So school is here, would say that Jesus demands here, a more radical even than a military commander.
So a military commander would expect people to give up their lives for a cause maybe for the cause of Rome. Something like that, but not for a single person. But Jesus, you are saying you need to be willing to give up your life for me to follow me. So, Jesus, now goes on to use language drawn from Commerce. In verse 46, he uses these words, he uses the word profit, gain forfeit and exchange, you
probably didn't realize. But now that I've mentioned it, you realize that those four things are all terms from Commerce profit gain forfeit exchange. So, Jesus starts by saying, what gain then is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin or forfeit his life? So this is a rhetorical question, one of those questions Jesus asks to get people thinking King the answer to the question. If there was an answer would be
none. There is no profit in gaining worldly possessions but ultimately losing your life, that's not a profitable thing. So Jesus is trying to get the crowds to focus on Eternal things rather than Earthly things. He wants them to recognize that our life is more important than anything else. And another way of looking that would be looking at, that would be to say he wants them to understand that forfeiting their life for a lesser good. Should not be done.
So things like, you know worldly Goods. There's probably some good in there but he wants to remind them that their life takes precedence and they shouldn't forfeit that for a lesser good. He then says, what can a man offer in exchange for his life? So again, it kind of using this commercial transaction language, but this in particular is probably an illusion to Psalm 49, verse 7 to 9, which says this truly, no man can Ransom himself or give to God the price
of his life. For The Ransom of his life is costly and yet can never suffice that he should live on forever and never see the pit, So, that passage from the Old Testament says. Man can't even offer his life to God. In order to in order to avoid death, he is going to die one day.
And, you know, as costly as life is, it's not enough to pay a ransom to God and Jesus might be tapping into that verse when he speaks when he speaks these words because certainly his Jewish readers would have been familiar with that language. Never 38, Jesus starts with an important word he says for.
So that tips us off that Jesus is about to explain why he's just given this teaching, what's the overall point he wants to make his about to tell us He says if anyone in this adulterous and sinful generation, so pretty scathing words, but he's talking about the generation. Jesus is speaking to at the time.
This generation the one he's talking to similar, denunciations are made against the Israelites in the Old Testament. He says, if anyone in this adulterous and sinful generation is ashamed of me and my words. So, probably the basic idea is those in that generation who hear Jesus and reject him, who don't accept him, the son of man will be ashamed of him. So Jesus says, Those Who reject Jesus in this generation on job on Judgement Day, the Messiah or
son of man will reject them. The fact that Jesus says, anyone who is ashamed of me? And my words, the son of man will be ashamed of him. Jesus is probably implying to the crowds that he's the Messiah, that's the connection. He wants them to make. He is the son of man who's talking about. When he come and Jesus goes on when he comes in the glory of his father with the Holy Angels. So on the day that he comes with his father with the glory of the
Holy Angels on that day. If anyone had been ashamed of Jesus in that generation, then the son of man will be ashamed of him. So, when he says the in the glory of his father with the Holy Angels, it's probably a reference to the second coming. So where we have that language of coming with the angels, most likely he's talking about The second coming which hasn't happened yet.
So Jesus saying that on Judgment Day anyone from that generation his own generation hurt, who heard about Jesus, but chose to reject him will be rejected by God, so he's kind of reinforcing his original teaching, which is that if you don't lay down your life and follow Jesus, you won't inherit eternal life. Notice how that's the same point he was making earlier on, but now he's making more graphic is saying that on Judgment day, you will be rejected by God. So Jesus wants the crowds to put
things in perspective. Yes, there's things in their life that they're concerned about but one day there will be a judgment day and Jesus is calling for a radical decision. Interestingly, this is the first time Jesus makes reference to his father in The Gospel of Mark when he says he comes in the glory of his father. The only well, the first time in Mark, the uses the word father. Now we go to verse 9:1. Continuing Jesus said to them, this could be a different
occasion. Remember, Mark is not necessarily saying this is the same chronological day. He just says, and he said to them, truly, I say to you or amen. Amen. I say to you or verily, verily, as some translations, have it. That always tips us off, that Jesus is about to say something important. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God. Come with power.
Our. So when he says there are some standing here, he's talking to the crowd. He says there's some people among you, who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God, come with power. So the king, what's going on here? When did the kingdom of God come in power? Well, it must be at some point in the future from when Jesus is speaking, the kingdom of God had already come in a sense.
By the time, Jesus was speaking. It had come in the person of Jesus but it would not visibly come with power.
Until some other point in the future and there's different answers to when Jesus is talking about when does or did the kingdom of God come in power, some would say the Annunciation because that's the very next thing that happens in the gospel of Mark, some might say, Pentecost some have said, perhaps in context, he's talking about his own death and Resurrection, but I don't think that's as likely because he's why so who will not taste death because that's possibly only
like a year away from when he's talking. Talking. So I don't think that, that fits necessarily, I think the best fit for this, the day when the kingdom of God comes with power, would be 70 AD. When just the temple was destroyed, and Jesus was publicly Vindicated, and the kingdom of God became gloriously evident for their general public. So, the kingdom of God arrived in Jesus, but it didn't become publicly manifested and to 70 AD.
And there's a lot that could be said about the significance of the destruction of the Temple. And that makes sense some people in the crowd, but not all of them would survive till 70 AD, which is about 40 years between when Jesus is speaking and the Fulfillment of the event. So I think that's the best bit. Jesus, he is prophesying that the kingdom of God, will come during the lifetime of some, but not all the people there. So I think it is a reference to 70 AD.
And that's the end of the passage. So, I want to finish here, as I sometimes, do with a quote, from the Catholic commentary on sacred scripture for the gospel of Mark. It says this, these sayings of Jesus would have hit home for Christians in 1st Century. Rome for some of whom taking up the cross, but became a cruel reality, during Nero's persecution.
But what about those times and places where there is little direct persecution of the church, it is easy to forget that the self-denial and a Readiness to suffer that Jesus describes a part of the normal Christian Life. In fact, the only way to the inner transformation that prepares us to enter his glory. There are kinds of persecution more subtle than that, of ancient Rome. But no less a threat to Christian discipleship. How often a Christians, pressured to tailor their words
and behavior. So, as to win approval and avoid derision from the world, how often are they attempted to soft-pedal the gospel in order to conform to the political Correctness of the age, the danger of refashioning Christianity into something more safe and comfortable is summed up in Jesus challenge to Peter. You are not thinking as God does, but as human beings do, So I think that's quite a nice summary of how we might apply that to our 21st century
context. Certainly Jesus teachings would have hit home to the early Christians as they were persecuted in Rome, but it should hit us as well. Should hit home for us today, is we have a tendency to not give ourselves fully to Jesus. So, how does the Catholic Church? Develop teachings? Based on Mark chapter 8, There's a couple of interesting references here. So firstly in paragraph, 4, 59, which is in the discussion about, why did the word become
flesh? It says, Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law. Love one. Another, as I have loved you, this love implies an effective offering of oneself after his example. So you'll hear the last part of that Echo is Mark chapter 8, where Jesus suggest that we need to offer up ourselves and follow his own example. There's also a reference to it in the section, on marriage. Interestingly, in paragraph 1615 of the catechism.
We hear this by coming to restore the original order of creation, disturbed by sin. He himself gives the strength and Grace Till they've marriage in the new dimension of the reign of God, it is by following Christ are announcing themselves and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to receive the original meaning of marriage and liver.
With the help of Christ. So that's quite a nice promise to Christians who are trying to live out a Christian marriage that by taking up their crosses in marriage. And following the example of Jesus, they will receive blessings and receive the original meaning of marriage with the help of Christ. And then in paragraph 2544 it says, Jesus in Joins his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone and bids them to renounce all that they have for his sake and that of the Gospel.
And that there is in the section about what it means to have Poverty of heart or to give our heart fully to Jesus. So, I'll put those catechism references in the show notes. As always, hopefully you enjoyed today's podcast and please tune in again tomorrow.