Jesus Predicts His Death (Mark 8:27-9:1)

Today Jesus wants to introduce a subject to his disciples that he knows will be misunderstood. I’m sure he knew the answer to the question before he asked it. “Who do people say I am?” and then “Who do YOU say I am?’ There was a lot of feedback on the first question, but only one answer to the second. Peter said what to the Jewish mind was unthinkable unless it was true. To say a person was the Messiah (Christ) was to say he was God and that was blasphemy. The people were seeing Jesus as a precursor to the Messiah and not actually considering him to BE the Messiah.
Jesus then began to teach them about what would happen. He referred to Himself as the Son of Man. Remember the story about the Fiery Furnace and what the fourth person was referred to? The Son of Man which was another way of saying a god. There also was one of the prophets, I was thinking it was Isaiah, although I may be wrong, that mentioned the phrase, “Son of Man” several times. Jesus clearly told the disciples what was going to happen. But notice, Jesus referred to Himself in the third person, “The Son of Man must…”
1.  suffer
2. Be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law
3. Be killed
4. Rise again after 3 days.
Peter didn’t take this well and took it upon himself to rebuke Jesus. The Jewish feeling was that the Messiah would come conquering and rescue them from their enemies. Peter, couldn’t put what Jesus was saying into what he had been taught all his life. How could Jesus be the Messiah and die?  Peter was rebuked and Jesus went into a teaching about “the things of God”. Notice that when Jesus said,”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”, that He was literally telling them that He would be crucified. Crucifixion was considered the most humiliating death for the worst criminals and yet not only would Jesus be crucified He was making it plan that following Him would be complicated and difficult.
Yesterday, we read about the blind man being healed and the steps it took for his healing. I wonder if Jesus had another reason to heal the man the way He did. What if Jesus was using it as an illustration of Him dying and the disciples slowly coming to see what the real plan was?
Since yesterday I was thinking about Jesus leading the blind man out of town by taking his hand. I wonder what they talked about. Can you imagine anyone just taking another person’s hand and leading them a fair distance without having a conversation?
Jesus seems to be sensing an urgency for the disciples to understand God’s plan for Him. I’m sure they were like us and even though the words were there and heard, because we could not imagine that thing happening, we ignored it and didn’t take it seriously. When we don’t like what we hear we pretend it wasn’t said. Doesn’t change the truth, it merely makes it more difficult for us later.