Gain the world and lose my life?

     As we approach Holy Week it feels like time is speeding up, that this Lenten journey which began four weeks ago is somehow accelerating the closer we come to the cross. This week in our gospel from Mark we have a simultaneous confession of faith and betrayal of Jesus' identity.
    Peter boldly declares that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Savior of the world. And at this confession Jesus orders them sternly not to tell anyone. The time had not yet come. But the time was coming for Jesus to reveal exactly what it meant for him to live into his role as Messiah - and it wasn't what the disciples expected. To be the Messiah meant to suffer, to be rejected, to be killed, and then after three days to rise again.
     While Peter boldly confessed Jesus to be the Messiah before, now he turns and tells Jesus that the Messiah does NOT suffer, be rejected, be killed, and then rise again. Surely the Messiah would rise to great glory so that the whole world might come to know God's salvation. Surely the Messiah would enjoy great power and honor and respect fitting a king, especially a king in the line of David. Yet as always, Jesus uses this opportunity to turn everything we know on its head.

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ~ Mark 8.34-36

As we speed toward our Three Holy Days, the mystery of faith looms before us. How is one to live as a follower of Jesus? What does it mean for us that the one we follow suffered? What can it mean that we are called to deny the self?
     A wonderful Christian artist named TobyMac composed a song based on these verses several years ago, and it is my prayer that the song and the video invite you into living this mystery with me.