Whenever I preach on a passage that mentions Satan, I get a little uneasy. I didn’t grow up in a fundamentalist church, but I grew up in an area so filled with them that what was said in their pulpits sort of spilled out into the rest of the community. My classmates went to churches that preached hellfire and brimstone. They were scared straight into faith by talk of a literal devil who wanted them to burn for all eternity.
That’s not the sort of church I serve. I don’t want to scare people into faith. I want to focus on loving God because God loves us, not telling people they should love God or else. So when I see a passage like this one from Mark, I am tempted to just avoid the part about Satan and focus on something else.
But it’s hard to talk around in this case. Jesus is with one of his favorite disciples, and he starts to explain what’s about to happen. Jesus knows he is going to be turned over to the authorities, that he will suffer and be killed—and then rise again.
