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Text: Mark Hold the Cross In him whose name which one day all men will confess, and at which every knee will bend, dear brothers and sisters in Christ: There are at various points in each of our lives, certain critical junctures. These are the times of transition – of moving from one phase of life to another: like, for example, when a young person reaches that age when he or she leaves the folks and heads out on their own, or when a steady couple decides that it’s time to take the plunge into marriage, or when people change careers, or move from city to city. You know what I’m talking about: those points in our lives that call for certain decisions to be made, and actions to be taken based on them, and beyond which the normal rhythm of life is substantially different than it was before. Such junctures are often described in terms of coming to an intersection or a fork in the road. That’s because there’s usually several paths that might be pursued, and you have to choose one of them. The young person thinking of leaving the nest might choose to go to college, or enter military service, or go to a trade school, or maybe not do anything and just hang around the house playing video games until physically thrown out into the cold, cruel world by exasperated parents. Generally speaking, when you come to one of those forks in the road, it’s best to make a choice and commit yourself to it, rather than have outside forces make the decision for you. In any case, the reason I mention
this all is that there are a couple of such critical junctures evident in this
morning’s Gospel reading from St. Mark.
The first has to do with Jesus.
The text we heard marks a major transition in his messianic
mission. Up to this point, he has been
spending most of his time going throughout Well, it turns out that it’s a lot
more complicated than that. Even the
most seemingly obvious spiritual insights and breakthroughs do not come
naturally to the people of this fallen world.
Sin has darkened our minds and hardened our hearts to the truths of
God. On our own, we’d never be able to
come to the right conclusions about spiritual matters. So, simply based on observation and knowledge
of the facts, we’d not be able to figure out that Jesus is the Christ. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit working
through the revealed Word of God—be it the written Scriptures or the person of
Jesus, because both are God’s revealed Word––to make the light go on so that we
can properly identify Jesus as Christ and Savior. That’s why in St. Matthew’s parallel account
of this story, when Peter says to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the
Living God”, the Lord replies to him, “Blessed are you [Peter], because
flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but [it was made known to you by]
my Father in heaven.” But now that (through the power of
God) the disciples have made the correct identification of Jesus as the Christ,
it’s time to shift to the next phase of his mission. “Now that you know who I am, let me tell you
what I’ve come to do.” Jesus begins to
explain to his disciples the work he must do as the Christ; namely to go
to Jerusalem, be rejected by the religious leaders there, be abused and suffer
much, and then to die for the sins of the world only to rise again on the third
day. So it’s at this point that Jesus
changes the whole tone of his ministry:
it becomes darker and more intense – and it’s really not so much like a
fork in the road for him, because this has been his plan and path all along; so
we might think of it instead as a sudden change in grade. Things have been pretty smooth and steady up
to now; but from this point forward his way will be increasingly steep and
difficult. He will be facing much more
opposition, his enemies will become more confrontational and angry, and it will
culminate with his total rejection by everyone – ultimately even by his
heavenly Father when he is nailed to the cross.
So, like I said, this morning we
see Jesus at one of his life’s critical turning points; but if it is for him,
then it’s also one for all those people who follow him. But where Jesus had only one hard path to
pursue, those who have been with him in Galilee have several options. They do stand at a fork in the road. And the course they end up taking is
determined pretty much by how the answer the question of Jesus, ”Who do you say
that I am?” It’s a question that every
follower of Jesus must answer. In view
of what you’ve seen and heard, and taking into consideration the testimony of
the Holy Scriptures, “What do you believe about Jesus? Who do you think he is?” It’s a question that calls for a response of
faith. It’s a question that demands a
personal affirmation and commitment. And
understand that when Jesus asked the question, there were huge crowds of people
who would have called themselves followers of Jesus – but for most of them, the
Jesus they were following was more a fabrication of their own sin-darkened
imaginations than the real flesh and blood Son of God who stood before
them. And as we’ll see, two thousand
years later, that hasn’t changed very much. As we heard the disciples report, there were
many back then who believed Jesus to be a very good man. They thought he was another (or perhaps a
reincarnation) of one of the Lord’s prophets.
They heard him preach about a God of compassion, love, and forgiveness –
quite unlike anything they were used to hearing about from their rabbis. They saw Jesus as the helper of the poor and
needy, and the friend of sinners. And
they really liked the way he stood up for the little guy, and how he went head
to head with all of the “best” people in society—those who thought themselves
to be so holy and who were always looking down their noses at everybody
else. To them he was almost like a moral
Robin Hood, taking honor from proud and giving it to the humble. Yes, they thought Jesus was a prophet who had
some wonderful new insights about God – insights that had to potential to
change the world; but they did not believe him to be the long promised Savior,
the one called Christ. And in many ways, this is exactly
where much of modern, so-called “liberal” Christianity is today. Oh, make no mistake, they call Jesus
the “Christ”; but without any real understanding of what the Scriptural Christ
was supposed to be. Instead, they’ve
latched on to certain points of his teaching, and discarded other points that
don’t resonate quite as well with them.
Specifically, they’ve chosen to highlight Jesus’ reaching out to and
close association with the poor and downtrodden, with sinners and
outcasts. They remember above all his
words: “Judge not, lest ye be judged”,
and from this they’ve derived a theology of acceptance and inclusion that
condemns no one. They see Jesus more as
a social reformer, who would have us do away with distinctions of class, race,
gender, sexual orientation, what have you – the things they perceive to be root
causes of society’s ills. They believe
that by employing Jesus’ teachings of love and tolerance, we can make this a
better world for everyone. And that’s the problem with such a
theology: it has no need for a Christ
who is a Savior. All it needs is
a christ who is a good enough messenger that he can teach us how to save
ourselves – and even then, just in this world, not the next – but that’s okay,
because such a theology isn’t too sure about the next life anyway. Today is all that matters. Well, need I say it? Such a christ is no Christ at all. Nor can you take just some of his message and
leave other parts behind. Yes, Jesus
accepted sinners: repentant
sinners, those who hated their sin and feared God’s judgments, and who wanted
to amend their lives. And we need to be
careful to draw that distinction. Jesus
did not “accept people just the way they were.”
He preached against the sin that filled people’s lives, and he accepted
the contrite and the broken hearted. His
sharpest words were for those who felt no need to repent. And this is important: A Jesus who doesn’t condemn hardened sinners
has absolutely no need to die as a substitute for them. And so perhaps it’s not surprising that
that’s exactly what we’re hearing from so many theologians of the liberal
church. A line I come across in their
books and articles quite frequently runs something like this: “I just can’t believe in a God who would
demand the sacrifice of anyone, much less his own son!” They follow a Jesus who is not the Christ –
and certainly not one who carries a cross for the sin of the world. And at least with respect to that
last statement, they are not entirely alone.
Speaking for the rest of the disciples, Simon Peter confessed that Jesus
was indeed the Lord’s Christ whose coming the prophets had foretold. As was stated before, this wisdom did come
from brilliant deduction, but rather from the illumination of the Holy
Spirit. Peter recognized that Jesus was
far more than another of the Lord’s prophets.
He knew Jesus was God’s own Son, Immanuel, “the God who is with
us”. And he knew that the Lord did not
“accept people just the way they were”.
He himself had experienced the terror of God’s judgments against the sin
in his own life when he realized that in Jesus he had encountered God in
flesh. He fell at Jesus’ feet and
pleaded, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” He didn’t count himself worthy to be with
Jesus. But then he had also experienced
the Lord’s forgiveness; and comforted by the Lord’s redeeming grace, he found
the strength to follow Jesus. Unfortunately, as we heard this
morning, there were some places and situations he wasn’t willing to follow the
Lord. Like so many others of his day,
Peter had definite ideas about what the Christ would do when he came. It was a theology of triumph and glory. He imagined that the Christ would be a
conqueror who would restore the fortunes of the Kingdom of Israel, a kingdom
that had long since lapsed into ruin and decay.
And he knew why that was: it was
because of God’s judgment on the nation on account of the people’s sin. But it was widely held that the Christ, when
he came, would restore the Kingdom to God’s people by first turning the
people’s hearts back to the Lord. He
would be someone who would inspire the people to be righteous and godly – a new
Moses, who would bring out the best in people and get them to gladly and
willingly obey the Laws of God. Then, in
view of the people’s obedience, God would bless them beyond measure. That’s why, when Jesus began to
explain that the true nature of his mission was to be rejected and to die,
Peter was aghast. A Christ who is
rejected by God’s people? A Christ who
suffers, is humiliated, and who dies?
What was Jesus talking about? He
took his Captain aside for some sound advice from his loyal first
lieutenant. The text says that he
rebuked Jesus. He used sharp words. Makes you wonder what he might have said: “Excuse me Jesus; I know that you are the
Christ, and that you’re God’s Son and all, but let me tell you
the way it’s supposed to be. We’re
heading onward and upward to glory.
Forget this “rejection” stuff. If
anyone stands in our way, we’ll just sweep them aside. We believe you to be our Christ and king –
but hold the cross. We don’t need that.” And here, I think it’s safe to
say, is where much of modern, conservative, evangelical Christianity is. Oh, certainly they believe in the sacrificial
death of Jesus for the sin of the world, but it tends to be something that’s
viewed very much as past tense. “That
old sin thing has been dealt with, and now that it has, let’s forget about it,
put it behind us, and move on to the victory the Lord has planned for us. The Lord has called us to be holy: let’s act the part.” This is the spirit that lies behind efforts
to reform the nation (an earthly kingdom) by erecting monuments to the Ten
Commandments in courthouses, getting prayer back into the public schools, and
keeping the words “One Nation under God” in the Pledge and on our
currency. The belief is that if we could
just elect the right leaders, change enough laws, and enforce them with
sufficient deterrents, we could whip this country into shape and thus cause it
to be blessed by God. “If we become good
enough, the Lord will reward us.” You’ll
notice in all of that there is no mention of the cross – no mention of the
righteousness that comes from God through faith in the atoning work of Jesus
apart from our works. Rather, it has in
mind the things of men – that glorify human efforts; not the things of God and
that glorify Christ. That’s why Jesus
calls it what it is: the doctrine of
Satan. The problem with this whole point
of view is that it sees the battle against sin as something that’s primarily
external. “My sin has been removed; now
I have to take the fight to the enemy.
We’ve got to defeat those sinners out there – and they have to be beaten
by force.” That’s wrong on two
counts. First, this side of eternity,
the battle within never ends. Yes, we
live in the Lord’s grace and blood bought forgiveness. But we are not free of sin or its
consequences. If anything, as a
Christian struggles from day to day while moving forward in faith, the fight
against the fallen flesh grows more intense.
Like it was for Jesus, forward progress is hard. We can never say, “I’ll take Jesus as Christ
and my Lord; but no thanks, hold the cross, I don’t it need anymore”. Quite the contrary, growing in faith means
realizing how thoroughly sinful you really are and how much more you need the
Lord’s forgiveness. Then it’s
appropriate to say, “Hold the cross”; but in the sense of “I need to hold on to
it even more tightly”. The other thing that’s wrong with
that point of view is that it anticipates that the sin in others can be
defeated by enough Christians getting together to pass good legislation, or to
provide moral encouragement and role modeling, or if nothing else, to ensure
rigid enforcement of laws. None of those
things makes any of us righteous before the Lord. How could we possibly think it would work for
others? We, as Christians, have not been
told to go out and conquer the world for Christ, nor have we been guaranteed
any such victory in this world. The only
victory we’ve been promised is the one over our own sin, death, and grave that
comes by trust in the Lord who died for us.
And the mission we’ve given is to fight the sinner within, and to share
the Lord’s good message of salvation with others. This, we’ve been told, will not result in
widespread success or results that are glorious by human standards. The opposite is true. We’ve been told to expect rejection,
persecution, and defeat. Holding the
cross of Christ means also sharing its sorrows and hardships. And that’s something we are asked
to do everyday. The question of Jesus,
“Who do you say that I am?” is one that the Lord confronts us with
constantly. We always stand at the
crossroads. How we answer the question
determines how our walk with him will be.
Our natural inclinations are to want a Jesus Christ without a cross
either by denying that our sins are a problem in the first place (as is done in
many liberal circles), or by imaging that our sins are no longer a problem
because we’ve gained victory over them (as is done in some conservative
circles). Either way, the goal is to
hold the cross at arm’s length and so to avoid it. Either way, when we do that, we’re not
following the Jesus who is Christ and Savior.
May God, in his mercy, give each of us the grace to follow his Son
faithfully, to recognize our continuing need for his forgiveness, and so to
ever more firmly hold to his cross. In
Jesus’ name. Amen. Soli Deo
Gloria! |
