BigRead12, Week 4: Challenges

This week’s BigRead12 was all about challenge, and specifically the challenge of Jesus’ words in Mark 8: ‘Who do you say that I am?’.

There wasn’t much feedback from last week’s session and the idea of going away to work on ‘rules to live by’, so we began by hearing from people on the street how they would respond to this new question.

Then we read the bible passages Mark 8: 27-38; 9 30-37.

After which we listened to Tom Wright.

We asked ourselves what the most important characteristic of Jesus was for us. The immediate answer was Saviour, and we went on to speak about Jesus’ acceptance and forgiveness along with his non-judgmental attitude. Someone spoke about his role as mediator between God and humanity, and another of his victory over death and the gift of eternal life. We also noted how Jesus turns things upside down so that they meake sense, and we refered to the book ‘The Upside Down Kingdom’.

We then asked what it means for us today to deny ourselves and take up our cross. For those to whom Jesus was originally speaking, taking up their cross was literal rather than figurative. Someone said that if we’re not finding it difficult being a Christian we’re probably not doing it right! We talked about giving all to God, being dead to ourselves and what that might mean: letting go of the things we want, holding loosely to possessions, realising what really matters, subjugating our priorities to God’s. We noted that Jesus said he would be ‘ashamed’ of those who were ashamed of him. No punishment  just disappointment. Effective!

We also went on to ask how we sometimes behave like the disciples arguing over who is the greatest. Whilst we might not do this so obviously, we recognised that we are often quick to take offence, or over-forceful in presenting our cherished ideas, and can be subtly manipulative of one another. We can even get into a competition over whose problems are the more important!

After all this, we heard from Krish Kandiah.

We decided we would work at home on how we would describe Jesus is just a few words. Feel free to add your ideas to the comments below. As a prelude to worship and prayer, we watched the video “That’s My King”.