Fr. Michael Vinoth sx
It is indeed a glad day to come and praise the Lord our God in the church on this 24th Sunday in ordinary time year B. Beginning from this Sunday, next six Sundays we will be reading from the Mark’s account of the journey of Jesus and his apostles to Jerusalem. He makes his apostles to understand his coming passion, death and resurrection. He is also teaching them about the discipleship.
Today in the gospel we see “Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi.” What is special in this village Caesarea Philippi? This city was founded by king Philip, the son of Herod the Great, he named the town after Ceasar and himself. It was pagan pilgrimage centre. There were temples for Syrian Gods Bal and Pan, Roman God Zeus and a marble temple for the Emperor Ceasar. In this context Jesus is asking his disciples these questions “who do people say I am?... who do you say I am?”….
In other words, we can understand these questions, that what is the public opinion? And what is your personal opinion? It was easy for the disciple to reply for the first question. We see at least three different answers for public opinions. We are very quick in giving public opinion but we are afraid to give personal opinion. We see in the gospel today that, when Jesus asked his disciple about their personal opinion. For the first, peter opens up his mouth for other disciples. It was peter who first to recognize Jesus publicly as the anointed one. Then Jesus blesses Peter, he is only disciple to receive blessing in the gospel. “blessed are you, Simon son of John” it is not some human who revealed to you but My Heavenly Father.
However, Jesus did not stop there but he continued to explain his mission and the mission of his Disciples. What is that mission? “Whoever wished to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me” why he has to say this in Caesarea Philippi, was to make his follower to understand that he was not conquering Messiah as Jewish expected, who would bring perfect peace and justice in political sense. Jesus is bringing a suffering servant rather than political view of Messiah. Through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, he would bring everlasting peace and justice. We read in the first reading of today from the song of the Suffering servant. Jesus saw aspects of his own life and messianic mission foreshadowed in the servant songs. He is asking his disciples to follow him in his footsteps.
This is a strong message for the disciples of today, to deny oneself, to take up one’s cross and to follow him. Most of the Christian today we have the desire to be His Disciples but don’t want to deny oneself. We are love Jesus as well as the activities of devil. We want to serve God and serve mammal. We have to deny most of our evil behavior like, selfishness, envy, vengeance and greedy. We need to have love and forgiveness. To take up one’s cross, is another challenge that we face in today’s disciples. We do not want any kind of sufferings in our life. We want only enjoyment and easy-going life. There is no success without pain or in other words no pain no gain. We all want gain without undergoing any pain. As disciple of Jesus we need to carry our one cross. There will be blessings if we are able to carry other’s cross as well. To Follow Jesus, we have many idols to follow, we look at the world leaders, or famous models or sportsmen as our life model. We have forgotten the real model, who laid down his life for us and who would come again to judge living and death.
It is indeed a glad day to come and praise the Lord our God in the church on this 24th Sunday in ordinary time year B. Beginning from this Sunday, next six Sundays we will be reading from the Mark’s account of the journey of Jesus and his apostles to Jerusalem. He makes his apostles to understand his coming passion, death and resurrection. He is also teaching them about the discipleship.
Today in the gospel we see “Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi.” What is special in this village Caesarea Philippi? This city was founded by king Philip, the son of Herod the Great, he named the town after Ceasar and himself. It was pagan pilgrimage centre. There were temples for Syrian Gods Bal and Pan, Roman God Zeus and a marble temple for the Emperor Ceasar. In this context Jesus is asking his disciples these questions “who do people say I am?... who do you say I am?”….
In other words, we can understand these questions, that what is the public opinion? And what is your personal opinion? It was easy for the disciple to reply for the first question. We see at least three different answers for public opinions. We are very quick in giving public opinion but we are afraid to give personal opinion. We see in the gospel today that, when Jesus asked his disciple about their personal opinion. For the first, peter opens up his mouth for other disciples. It was peter who first to recognize Jesus publicly as the anointed one. Then Jesus blesses Peter, he is only disciple to receive blessing in the gospel. “blessed are you, Simon son of John” it is not some human who revealed to you but My Heavenly Father.
However, Jesus did not stop there but he continued to explain his mission and the mission of his Disciples. What is that mission? “Whoever wished to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me” why he has to say this in Caesarea Philippi, was to make his follower to understand that he was not conquering Messiah as Jewish expected, who would bring perfect peace and justice in political sense. Jesus is bringing a suffering servant rather than political view of Messiah. Through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, he would bring everlasting peace and justice. We read in the first reading of today from the song of the Suffering servant. Jesus saw aspects of his own life and messianic mission foreshadowed in the servant songs. He is asking his disciples to follow him in his footsteps.
This is a strong message for the disciples of today, to deny oneself, to take up one’s cross and to follow him. Most of the Christian today we have the desire to be His Disciples but don’t want to deny oneself. We are love Jesus as well as the activities of devil. We want to serve God and serve mammal. We have to deny most of our evil behavior like, selfishness, envy, vengeance and greedy. We need to have love and forgiveness. To take up one’s cross, is another challenge that we face in today’s disciples. We do not want any kind of sufferings in our life. We want only enjoyment and easy-going life. There is no success without pain or in other words no pain no gain. We all want gain without undergoing any pain. As disciple of Jesus we need to carry our one cross. There will be blessings if we are able to carry other’s cross as well. To Follow Jesus, we have many idols to follow, we look at the world leaders, or famous models or sportsmen as our life model. We have forgotten the real model, who laid down his life for us and who would come again to judge living and death.