Mark 8:27-38, Proper 18B
9/13/15
The Reverend Roger Hungerford
I come to you in the name of our loving, life giving, liberating God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
How big is God’s love?
I think most of us would say it is ginormous. Yes that is a real word. Ginormous is a contraction of
giant and enormous and it has made its way into Merriam Webster’s dictionary.
I imagine the word ginormous was created by an eight year old when they were asked “how big is
God’s love?” God’s love is much bigger than giant and much bigger than enormous, so it is
enormous multiplied by giant – ginormous.
Jesus certainly is an example of God’s ginormous love. In the gospel of Mark Jesus love is
manifested in a number of ways the most visible is his signs and wonders. He feeds five thousand
people, heals the sick, casts out demons, and gives sight to the blind, then feeds four thousand more
people. In other gospel accounts of Jesus ministry, he does all of those signs and wonders and raises
three people from the dead, and turns water into wine.
After doing all of that you would need a glass of good wine.
But these signs and wonders show the ginormousness of God’s love. And the word got around so
people came from all over to meet with this man, Jesus.
And even seeing all of these signs and miracles, they didn’t completely know the ginormity of God’s
love for us. This morning’s gospel reading reveals that.
Jesus asked his disciples, “who do the people say that I am?”
The disciples answered some say John the Baptist, other say Elijah, and some say one of the
prophets.
All of these are akin our eight year old’s response to “how big is God’s love? Ginormous.”
You see if you think Jesus was John the Baptist or Elijah or one of the prophets then you think God
loves us so much he is willing to send one of his best players back from paradise. Remember Herod
had John the Baptist behead and given to his daughter after she seductively danced for him at his
birthday party. While Elijah was carried off in a flaming chariot, and the other prophets were all
killed in a wide variety of ways. So saying by the people saying they think Jesus was John, Elijah or
one of the prophets was tantamount to saying God loves us so much he is willing to send someone
back from heaven.
All of those were pretty good answers from the people because showed they grasped that Jesus was
someone who was divinely supernatural.
But their answers also reveal how much they didn’t know Jesus. The response about being John the
Baptist or Elijah or one of the prophets revealed how they had not really understood Jesus’ teaching.
The people don’t quite get it.
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Mark 8:27-38, Proper 18B
9/13/15
The Reverend Roger Hungerford
So Jesus wanted to know if his disciples understood the ginormity of God’s love that he represented.
So he asked them “who do you say that I am?”
They could have answered a number of ways – a tireless seeker of lost souls, a really great Rabbi, a
superhero, a miracle worker, a fearless shepherd, a compassionate healer, or a prodigious chef and
they would have been right, but those answers would have been incomplete.
Thankfully Peter responded with the right answer when he said “You are the Messiah.”
Peter had paid attention during his time as one of Jesus’ select disciples, and God had given him the
insight to understand that God’s love was so immense that he was sending the specially anointed
one foretold in scripture who was going to transform the world. That is ginormous.
But even Peter’s understanding of the ginormity of God’s love falls short. You see Peter thought
that being the Messiah and transforming the world meant becoming this powerful, superstar leader
that would do more than simply defeat their oppressors. Peter believed the Messiah would lead all of
the Jews to become powerful and rich and give them the opportunity to inflict some revenge for all
the suffering God’s chosen people had endured from their enemies.
Satan used that misunderstanding by Peter to try to dissuade Jesus from his calling to redeem us.
That is why Peter pulled Jesus aside after he tells the disciples he must suffer and die for us.
Jesus’ rebuke of Peter reveals that God’s love is even bigger than earthly power and money and
cannot be changed by Satan’s manipulations.
God’s love is so ginormous, he has sent a special sacrifice in the form of his son, so we can all
become royalty, heirs of the kingdom and, when our time comes, enter into the joy and bliss of
paradise. That is the ginormity of God’s love.
God’s love is so incomprehensibly big that it forgives all wrongs, and looks past all our flaws, and
spans all cultures and social barriers and loves us just for who we are where we are. Even when we
feel unworthy. Even when we turn away. Even when we worship earthly idols like money or power.
Even when we are manipulated by Satan.
And there are no exceptions to God’s love. We all are loved ginormously by God.
And God’s ginormous love is a grace offered gift. All we have to do to accept this gift is believe.
That is the good news.
But God does ask one thing of us – that we share this gift with each other. Jesus gave us a new
commandment that wells up from the ginormity of God’s love and that is our commandment to
love one another as he loved us.
We all know how to do that.
The question is do we share the ginormity of God’s love?
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Mark 8:27-38, Proper 18B
9/13/15
The Reverend Roger Hungerford
I pray that everyone can tell by how you live your life that you are one of Christ’s disciples. Amen.
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