The Gospel for Thursday is taken from Mark 8th chapters 27:33. Jesus and his disciples set out for the village 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 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. To know someone’s name is one thing, but to know who they really are, to know their heart, to know their purpose in life, is quite different. And here we see Peter with the correct answer as to who Christ really is. He is the anointed one, the one that was promised, the one that will redeem the world and destroy sin. So when he begins to tell them for the first time that he’s going to go through something very difficult for them to understand, and he says the word so clearly, I have to die and I’ll come back in three days. And Peter looks at him, unaware of what is spoken in scripture, and says, this is awful.

This is terrible. This can’t happen. And then Jesus reminds him, you think as humans think, but one day you’ll think as God thinks and you’ll know me and experience me and in your hearts. Take a few moments to reflect upon these images and then I will close with a prayer. Closing prayer. Father, I wonder often how many times you made yourself so clear about teachings.

And yet we still as human beings have a hard time understanding because we really don’t know the God you are. We have so many misconceptions of who you are as a divine being. And so the things that you say we don’t understand because we don’t know you open our hearts, our minds. We can really see you, God, as you are, incarnate in Jesus, longing to be the source of life for every single one of us. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.