Jesus and the Grieving Process

Yesterday, I was at the weekly text study that local clergy gather for each week, to discuss the lectionary readings for the coming Sunday as part of sermon prep. 

When reading through the Gospel text for this Sunday I immediatley thought of last Sunday's Gospel reading and saw Jesus and the disciples in a light that I never saw before. 

An excerpt from last Sunday's Gospel text:  Mark 8:31-32

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.  He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

An excerpt from this Sunday's Gospel text:  Mark 9:30-32

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;  for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

I have done much reading, studying and discussion about the Messianic secret.  The following reflection about these two texts is merely a personal reflection; by no means is it an attempt to be an academic contribution. 

What I saw yesterday when reading this text was a human Jesus coming to terms with his own death and needing to share this with his friends.  In the two incidents the Mark puts before us, I see the disciples react in a way that is completly normal when we hear of loved ones trying to grasp an imminent death.

In Mark 8, Peter rebukes Jesus, when Jesus speaks of the suffering and death he must soon experience.  I remember when my mom was undergoing intial chemo treatment and was wrestling with the sense that she could soon die.  Friends, loved ones, myself included, would rebuke her for saying such things!  It was something that we did not want to hear.  Last summer, I saw this as an outsider looking in, being a chaplain on the oncology unit of Reading Hospital.  Families would often rebuke their loved one when they would first verbalize and acceptance that they will soon die. 

In Mark 9, I totally got to where the disciples got when my mother deteriorated and we knew deep down that a comeback was unlikely.  Granted, the disiciples "didn't understand" but even though I knew what was going on with my mother, I didn't fully understand it either.  What jumped out on me in the two texts was that in the first text their is a rebuke and in the second text there is nothing, a fear to even ask or talk about it.  I remember as time went on my mother asking when she was going to die and myself and others just being quiet, there was no rebuking because we were beggining to recognize the truth about what was happening.  Even though we were still not ready to own or verbalize the truth about what was going on. 

Yesterday, when I engaged the scriptures I didn't just see a Jesus who was just prophesying his death, but a person who was wrestling with his death in a very human way.  This prophet, the Messiah, the Son of Man who knew that he would be raised from the dead still needed to deal with the fact that he would die.  I found it as a source of comfort that our God incarnate would need to grieve the loss of his own life in the same way we would need.  In this reflection I am merely saying that in addition to teaching about what was to happen, that he also wanted to share with his close friends (messianic secret) that he was going to die, and that he needed to say this to those he loved out loud. 

I find comfort and joy that the Risen Chirst, our living God, understands in a very intimate way what we face, when the reality of death draws near to us.