February 5
Mark 8: Flipping the Script
Genesis 38; Mark 8; Job 4; Romans 8
When Jesus speaks of Satan, it’s best to take him very literally, very straightforwardly. The context here is his teaching that he - the “Son of Man” - must suffer many things, be rejected and killed by the religious authorities, and three days later rise again (31).
Which was was the exact opposite of everyone’s expectations - everyone who had not connected the dots that the Suffering Servant of Isaiah (see especially Isaiah 53) would be that same Savior. So Peter, being the leader and closest to Jesus, took him aside and rebuked him (32) on behalf of them all. So Jesus looked at them all and rebuked Peter:
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
It is Peter that Jesus rebukes; it’s Peter who is wrong. But we must realize that Jesus does not call him “Satan” simply as an emotional outburst. In the thinking of Peter, Jesus sees the very real working of Satan. It’s not that Peter has become Satan or is possessed by Satan - not at all. But nevertheless Jesus sees that Peter has come into Satan’s wheelhouse, so that his attitude and actions are indistinguishable from Satan’s. The question is why?
Peter is setting his mind on the things of man - the way things normally work in the world - and not the things of God (33). This is “Satan” because the ways things normally work are routinely and profoundly influenced by Satan. In particular, he rouses societies such that it’s every man against each other. The period of the Judges is an example of his template - or the summer of 2020.
Then when everyone is at everyone else’s throat, and it seems everything will fall apart . . . and right when someone is about to ask, “Hey, what force is driving all this?” - right when Satan’s influence will be exposed, he “escapes” by setting everyone upon a scapegoat. He “hides” himself in the scapegoat - think Derek Chauvin. Then everyone imitates everyone else and agrees that that person is Satan. They set their zealous hatred upon that one sacrificial lamb. And when the lamb is sacrificed, the mob is satisfied - and Satan escapes.
But Jesus turns this on its head. Jesus “hijacks” the way of Satan by becoming the sacrificial lamb himself, absorbing all our guilt and setting us free from this world’s cycles of mob lust. Thus we must follow him on his way, which flips every script:
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (50)