Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him. He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 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.” (Mark 8.27-35)
As many of us know, one of the key concepts of marketing today is the idea of a brand. The word is rooted in the practice of cattlemen and cowboys in the Midwest and Western United States who branded their livestock with unique symbols or letters, using a searing-hot branding iron pressed into the hide of the animal, in this way permanently identifying the owner.
The procedure was important especially when cattle from different ranches grazed together on the open plains, the brand allowing cowboys to separate the cattle when it was time to drive them to market. Also, it served as a deterrent to rustlers who were less apt to steal a branded cow than an unbranded one, and, if stolen, the brand allowed the cattleman to reclaim ownership.
As marketing, understood as the promoting or selling of products through advertising, became popular in the business community, the word brand was borrowed from an earlier time to describe a product’s uniqueness. It can refer to a mark or symbol, such as the Nike swoosh, or to words or phrases such as Nike’s motto, “Just Do It.” These trademarks become the brand, an instantaneous way of identifying a Nike product.
Ideally, the brand catches the consumer’s attention, convincing a person to buy the product, marketed as different from and separate from any similar product. Entire floors of corporations are dedicated to marketing and to maintaining the brand of the company, often defined as the personality of the corporation. If positive, a brand can be worth billions of dollars. If negative, a brand can cause a company’s bankruptcy.
As we listen to that short section of Mark’s gospel that we have today, we would be right to say Rabbi Jesus knew nothing about marketing, or, if he did, he wasn’t interested in it. That point is made clear in the exchange between him and Simon Peter. Telling his disciples that he would soon have to “suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed,” Rabbi Jesus is not offering an attractive picture of his brand.
Simon Peter, recognizing the drawback of such a negative presentation, urges Jesus to reconsider his advertising campaign, “rebuking him,” as the evangelist Mark describes the exchange. Jesus, in turn, rebukes Simon and bluntly calls him Satan because he is trying to tempt Jesus away from the path that he knows he must walk. “Get behind me, Satan,” he says to his chief apostle, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Properly chastised by the reprimand, much the same as the head of the marketing department whose idea is shot down at the table by the chief executive, Simon says nothing further. But Jesus does. He calls together the crowd that has been following him and he tells them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. 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.”
With these words, Jesus puts before the people his brand, describing it as a life of suffering, rejection, and even death. Rarely do we find a leader putting in front of a group of prospective followers such a hard and harsh future. Perhaps Winston Churchill stands alongside Jesus as one of the few public leaders brave enough to offer such a brand, promising the people of England “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” when he spoke to the British Parliament in May 1940 as the country entered the early phases of World War II.
Many people consider this part of Mark’s gospel as the centerpiece, the crucial point towards which the gospel has been moving, the question of who Jesus is always the one in people’s minds as they watched him teach and heal. When Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is, the disciples answer him with the popular response, telling him that the people identify him as a prophet like others who have come before him.
When Jesus turns the question on the disciples, demanding an answer from them, Simon is willing to go out on a limb, answering that he is the “Anointed One,” in other words, the long-awaited Messiah. Before we applaud Simon’s insight, we should consider that his understanding of the Messiah was the commonly accepted one, that is, someone who would be a king like David, someone who would bring justice to those wronged and who would restore the good fortune of the Jewish people.
His error becomes clear because Jesus shatters that common image of the Messiah, offering in its place a suffering servant, someone who will suffer and die, taking upon himself the burdens of the people, the complete opposite of a big shot such as a Davidic king. It is no surprise that Simon reacts as he does, rebuking Jesus for rebranding the notion of the Messiah.
However, Jesus wants no misconceptions about who he is. Clear-eyed about himself, he knows he will not meet the image of the Messiah as it was commonly understood, its militaristic overtones nowhere near his ideals of humility and a common humanity. He will say as much in the Gospel of Matthew when he chastises Peter for pulling out his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane, intent on fighting the foes that have come to take Jesus. “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword,” he tells Peter, ordering him to put down his weapon.
It is for that same reason that these few verses are at the heart of Mark’s gospel, bringing to the fore the central theme of the gospel–the identity of Jesus. Forcefully and forthrightly, Jesus puts before the crowd who he is and who he will be. He names his brand. And should they wish to call him the Anointed One–it is here that the word christos is used for the first time in Mark’s gospel–then he wants it equally clear that he is redefining the term, understood now as a suffering Messiah, not as the victorious Messiah commonly believed.
From this point on, Jesus directs his travels towards Jerusalem, the place where he will fulfill his destiny as the suffering Messiah. The next several chapters, commonly called the “Journey Narrative” tell of his movement to the heart of Judaism where he “will suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.” He arrives in Jerusalem at the start of Chapter 11 and the remaining six chapters of the gospel will present those ugly truths in painful detail.
Sadly, even as Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem his disciples continue to misunderstand who he is, although he tells them on two more occasions of his impending death. After his third prediction in Chapter 10, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, approach him to ask, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Their request proves that his inner circle remains clueless.
For this reason, the disciples become negative examples in Mark’s gospel. They continually misunderstand who Jesus is. Mark wants his readers to learn from their mistakes and to avoid their example, challenging the subsequent followers of Jesus to accept the harsh realities of discipleship as Jesus spells them out. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” This is the Jesus brand.
For the first listeners of Mark’s gospel, it was a lived experience, the followers of Jesus suffering persecution and crucifixion in exactly the same way that Jesus predicted, challenged by his words to accept the demands of discipleship, whatever the cost, promised salvation only if they are willing to lose their lives for his sake.
Considering the significance of these few verses of Mark’s gospel, It does us well to ponder them closely and carefully because they tell us not only about the identity of Jesus but also about our identity as his followers. While the text poses the question of who Jesus is, it also poses the question of who we are. If we refuse to accept the brand–one that has suffering and self-sacrifice as its central message–then we abdicate the right to be called his followers. The Twelve stand as cautionary tales for us, rebuked by Jesus for their refusal to acknowledge the brand of Jesus as their own reality.
Of course, as always with the gospel, the focus has to shift from them to us. They had their moment and their opportunity, and they failed to meet the demands, at least in this Gospel. The original ending of the gospel has the women fleeing from the tomb of Jesus, “seized with trembling and bewilderment, saying nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Like the Twelve, they failed because of their fears.
Which puts the ball in our court, especially because we call ourselves his followers. As we have seen throughout the gospel, someone who follows is Mark’s favorite term for being a disciple, found already at the start when Jesus calls the first disciples with the words, “Follow me.” It is a word too often undervalued and too little understood.
In the text today, Jesus uses the same words again, telling the crowds, “Follow me,” but this time putting meat on the bones, explaining to them that following him means denying themselves, taking up their cross, and being willing to lose their lives in service to his brand. The question for us, then, as we make our journey with him in this time and in this place is just how close to Jerusalem have we come in our travels, Jerusalem understood as the place where we also must suffer greatly, be rejected by the powerful, and run the risk of dying because Jesus’ brand still isn’t accepted.
If we’ve never seen its buildings up close or walked its street with our own feet, then it is highly unlikely that we know anything about Jerusalem, choosing instead to stay safely ensconced in our own space, out of harm’s way, content to live below the radar, the notion of carrying a cross a brand that we simply aren’t interested in buying.
–Jeremy Myers
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