Who do you say I am? Peter's confession and the way of the cross

Mark 8 stands at the center of the Gospel.

• The first half (chapters 1 to 8) presents Jesus' authority in teaching, healing and exorcism, and it ends with a confession.
• The second half (chapters 8 to 16) follows Jesus toward Jerusalem and the cross. For authorship, date and audience, see the previous class on Mark 1: tradition ascribes the book to John Mark as Peter's interpreter, most scholars date it to around the time of the Jewish war with Rome, in the late 60s, and its readers appear to have been mainly Gentile. Scholars differ on all three points, and the class does not depend on them.

The chapter moves around the Sea of Galilee and then north. The first feeding takes place in a 'desolate place' after Jesus has been in the Decapolis, a region of mainly Gentile cities east of the lake (7:31). Many interpreters therefore take the four thousand to include non-Jews, though Mark does not say so. Bethsaida lay at the northern end of the lake. Caesarea Philippi, further north at the foot of Mount Hermon, was a city rebuilt by Herod's son Philip and named in honor of Caesar and himself. It was a place of pagan shrines and of imperial claims, and Mark places the question 'Who do you say I am?' in that setting.

The Jewish hope behind Peter's answer was varied. 'Christ' (Messiah) means Anointed One, and the expectation of a coming Davidic king was widespread, though not uniform. Many looked for a ruler who would deliver Israel from Rome. Almost none expected a Messiah who would be rejected and killed, and Jesus' announcement of that fate was the shock of the chapter.

Mark 8 is narrative, but it is carefully built.

• The first half is a sequence of linked scenes that all circle the question of understanding: bread, a sign, leaven, sight.
• The second half of the chapter then answers it. Mark does not tell the reader what to conclude from the feeding, the refused sign or the half-healed man. He lets the scenes sit beside each other and then makes the connection in Jesus' own questions in 8:17-21. A first principle of reading Mark is that arrangement is argument.

A second principle concerns the disciples. In Mark they are not models of understanding. They see and do not see, and the reader is meant to feel the irony of 8:17-18, where Jesus asks, 'Having eyes, do you not see?' This language comes from the prophets who accused Israel of spiritual blindness (Jeremiah 5:21; Ezekiel 12:2; compare Isaiah 6:9-10). Mark applies it to the closest followers of Jesus, which is a warning and not only a description.

A third principle is to hold titles in tension. 'Christ' is Peter's word and 'Son of Man' is Jesus' own. Jesus accepts the first, tells the disciples to say nothing, and then replaces what Peter hears in it by speaking of the Son of Man who must suffer. The chapter should be read as a lesson in redefining a title through a person. Mark 8:27-38 also has a parallel in Matthew 16:13-28 and Luke 9:18-27, but Matthew adds words of blessing to Peter that Mark does not have, and this class stays with Mark's own telling.

Verses 1–10

A large crowd has been with Jesus three days and has nothing to eat. Jesus says, 'I have compassion for this crowd.' The disciples ask, 'Where in this desolate place could anyone find enough bread?', though they have seen him feed five thousand in chapter 6. He takes seven loaves, gives thanks, breaks them and gives them to the disciples to distribute, then does the same with a few small fish. About four thousand eat, and seven baskets of pieces remain. The wording, 'took... gave thanks... broke... gave', is the pattern of 6:41 and also of the Last Supper (14:22). The desolate place recalls the wilderness where God fed Israel with manna (Exodus 16).

Verses 11–13

The Pharisees demand a 'sign from heaven', to 'test' him. Jesus sighs deeply and says, 'no sign will be given to this generation.' He has just given a sign of provision, and the demand shows that signs do not produce faith in the unwilling. Mark's refusal is flat and final; Matthew 12:39 adds the sign of Jonah.

Verses 14–21

In the boat the disciples have one loaf. Jesus warns them, 'Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod.' Leaven works unseen through a whole lump; in Scripture it often pictures a spreading corruption. The disciples think he is rebuking them for forgetting bread. Jesus responds with a string of questions: 'Do you still not see or understand? Do you have such hard hearts?' He then makes them recite the numbers: five loaves, twelve baskets; seven loaves, seven baskets. Mark uses two different Greek words for the baskets in the two stories, and he records both counts exactly. The meaning of the numbers is not stated, and interpreters differ: some see twelve tribes of Israel and seven nations of Canaan or the fullness of the Gentiles, while others see only abundance. The point Jesus presses is plain: the one who fed thousands is in the boat, and they worry about bread.

Verses 22–26

At Bethsaida friends bring a blind man. Jesus leads him out of the village, uses spittle and his hands, and asks, 'Can you see anything?' The man says, 'I can see the people, but they look like trees walking around.' Jesus lays his hands on him again and the man sees clearly. This is the only miracle in the Gospels done in two stages. Mark does not suggest that Jesus' power failed; the stages let the story act as a parable of the disciples, who see something but not yet clearly. The episode begins a pattern: Mark frames the whole journey to Jerusalem with the healings of two blind men, this one and Bartimaeus (10:46-52).

Verses 27–30

Jesus asks on the road, 'Who do people say I am?' The disciples report John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the prophets. Then comes the question that the whole Gospel has been asking: 'But what about you? Who do you say I am?' Peter answers, 'You are the Christ.' The confession is correct, and Jesus does not praise it in Mark. He orders them not to tell anyone, partly because the title in popular use carried hopes of political conquest.

Verses 31–33

Jesus 'began to teach' that the Son of Man 'must' (dei) suffer, be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, the three groups of the Jewish council, be killed, and rise after three days. 'Must' expresses divine necessity, and the pattern follows the Scriptures (compare Isaiah 53; Psalm 118:22). Peter takes him aside and rebukes him. Jesus turns, looks at the others, and rebukes Peter with some of the sharpest words in the Gospel: 'Get behind Me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.' Peter has voiced the temptation to a kingship without a cross.

Verses 34–38

Jesus calls the crowd with the disciples. To follow him means to 'deny himself and take up his cross'. Under Rome, a cross was the instrument of execution for rebels and slaves, and a person carrying one was on the way to die. 'Life' and 'soul' in verses 35-37 translate the same Greek word, psyche, and Jesus plays on it: to cling to life is to lose it, and to lose it for his sake and the gospel is to save it. Being 'ashamed' of him before a hostile generation will be met by the Son of Man's shame of that person 'when He comes in His Father's glory with the holy angels', language drawn from Daniel 7:13-14.

Mark 8 holds together two truths that the Bible keeps together: that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and that the Messiah's way is suffering. The Old Testament had both strands. The promise to David of an everlasting king (2 Samuel 7), the royal psalms and the vision of Daniel point to glory. The servant songs (Isaiah 52:13-53:12) and the righteous sufferer of the Psalms point to rejection and death. The first Christians read these as one story, and Mark's chapter is the first place where Jesus brings them together.

The chapter teaches the necessity of the cross in God's purpose, a theme that deepens in Mark 10:45 and 14. It also teaches the nature of discipleship: to follow Christ is to share his way, and the call is addressed to the crowd, not only to an inner circle. The warning on understanding teaches that sight is a gift, as Isaiah 6 and the Psalms say, and that even devoted followers can be dull until God opens their eyes. Finally, the chapter points to the return of the Son of Man in glory, an expectation developed in Mark 13 and 14:62 and in the rest of the New Testament.

This chapter is the center of Mark's portrait of Jesus. Peter's 'You are the Christ' names the office. Jesus' first passion prediction names the way he will fulfil it. Mark is careful about the order: he affirms the title, then fills it. 'Son of Man' in Daniel 7 is a figure who receives everlasting dominion from God; in Mark 8:31 and 38 the same Son of Man must suffer first and will return in glory. The chapter joins Daniel's glory and Isaiah's suffering in one person.

The bread miracles show Jesus as the one who provides in the wilderness, as God did through Moses. John 6:35 makes the claim openly with 'I am the bread of life', and some interpreters read Mark's feedings in that light. This is best taken as an echo, since Mark does not draw the connection himself. The two-stage healing and the rebuke of Peter show Jesus as the one who gives sight to the blind, which Isaiah promised for the age of salvation (Isaiah 35:5), and who exposes the thinking of those who do not yet see.

The resurrection is named in the same breath as the death: 'after three days rise again'. Mark presents the cross and the empty tomb as one saving work. His call to take up a cross is grounded in his own: Jesus does not ask anyone to walk a road he has not chosen to walk first.