Mark 8 Devotional

The Christ Who Must Suffer

“Then He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again.”Mark 8:31 (BSB)

Halfway through Mark's Gospel, Jesus asks the question everything has been building toward: who do his disciples say he is? Peter answers rightly that he is the Christ (8:29). But as soon as the title is spoken, Jesus begins to explain what kind of Christ he is. The Son of Man must suffer, be rejected by the leaders, be killed, and after three days rise (8:31). Peter takes him aside to correct him and is sharply rebuked for thinking the way people think rather than the way God does (8:33).

The disciples had already seen two miraculous meals and still did not understand (8:17-21). Now they hear that the path of the Christ runs through death. The cross was not a detour from his mission. It was the mission, and Jesus calls it necessary. Because he walked that road for us, following him means setting ourselves aside and walking behind him, and finding that a life given up for his sake is a life kept safe (8:34-35).

To think about: What would it look like to follow Jesus today in a way that costs you something?