This passage is the center of Mark’s Gospel, the hinge on which the two halves of the story turn. The theme is the identity and mission of Jesus himself, beginning with his question to the disciples “who do people say that I am?” When Peter famously answers “You are the Christ,” we have reached a real but brief high point. (cont.)
Yet Jesus’ elaboration of “Christ” involves an odd shift of language, since he speaks about the “Son of Man"/"Human One." While it has connotations of “one of us,” the title suggests a specific, representative human figure who will be glorified by God in the midst of a cosmic combat (Dan 7). Jesus does not see his struggle as a merely personal, political, or religious one, but as God’s definitive intervention in history. (cont.)
Praxeas
