(Audio Version; Music: "Lead Me To The Cross" by: Francesca Battistelli and "Bring The Rain" by: MercyMe)
Introduction
Have you
ever asked God why it can’t be easier to follow Jesus? I have a friend who has
been enduring some grueling trials in her life for quite a while who came to me
for some guidance and direction. I’ve spent time discipling her in what it
means to be a faithful follower of Christ. She asked me many months ago how she
would know if she is being faithful; if she’s on the right path. I told her if
the road of life seems wide and smooth and the traveling is easy, look down
because you’re probably on the wrong path. However, if the road is narrow and
rough and the footing is treacherous, look up because you’re probably on the
right path. It’s not true in all cases. However, ask any believer what it’s
like to everyday seek to become more and more like Jesus and you’ll probably
hear any of them give you some version of, “It’s really hard and rarely fun.
But, it is the most fulfilling life anyone could ever hope to pursue.” Most
Christians can’t stomach the first part so they miss out on the second part. My
experience is that Christians who are on the wide and smooth path where the
traveling is easy, are happy with their lives and can’t imagine trading that
for a life that is described as “really hard and rarely fun.” It’s not until
their happy life get’s burned to the ground that they realize that they were on
the wrong path all along. Once reoriented by the pain of a broken life,
faithful followers of Christ begin the long, hard climb along the narrow path
that seems all uphill with unsure footing complicated by treacherous
conditions. However, along the way, they meet fellow travelers and together
they traverse the narrow pathway. Each one encouraging the other, pulling each
other along, teaching those who are new travelers and sometimes carrying those
who are too tired and hurt to keep going. For those Christians who have the humility
and courage to say, “my way isn’t working, I’m going to try God’s way,” it is
the journey of a lifetime. It is a journey during which we surrender the life we
want and take up the life God wants for us. It will be the most difficult
journey we will ever willingly embark on. It is a Journey To The Cross.
From the
moment God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, He was on a journey.
It took some time, but He got there. Along the way, thousand of people learned
what God expected all along. It was never really about rites and rituals or
rules and regulations. It was always about relationship—relationship with God
and relationship with other people. However, sin erected an impasse and Jesus
was on a journey to remove that impasse. And what would it take to remove that
impasse? The cross! From the time Jesus became incarnate, He was on a Journey To The Cross. The cross put to
death the sin that created the relational impasse between God and people. The moment we became followers of Jesus, we
too began a journey; a long and difficult journey of learning how to be in
relationship once again with God through Jesus Christ and the proper way to be
in relationship with people. Not surprisingly, our journey also includes a
cross. For us, the cross puts to death the old us; the old way of doing things;
the old way of thinking. Like the Master we follow, each day since we accepted
Christ, we have been on a journey. We are each on our own Journey To The Cross.
Subject Text
Mark 8:31-38
31He
then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be
rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must
be killed and after three days rise again. 32He spoke plainly about
this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But when
Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me,
Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of
men.” 34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and
said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life will lose
it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What
good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or
what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed
of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man
will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy
angels.”
Context
Our Subject Text falls right between two
monumental events. In the text immediately preceding our Subject Text we find Jesus with His disciples in and around the
villages of Caesarea Philippi. While they were traveling, Jesus asked His
disciples what the people were saying about Him. Specifically, He wants to know
who the people say He is. The disciples respond by telling Him that some are
saying He is John the Baptist or Elijah or even one of the prophets. Of course
the people didn’t really know Jesus the way the disciples knew Him so Jesus
asked them the same question. “Who do you say that I am?” And there it is, the
question that draws the line in the sand between those who believe that God
revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ and those who simply believe in
the idea of a God who is unknown and unknowable. Peter, the representative of
all the disciples, confessed the belief that Jesus was, in fact, the Christ,
which in the original Greek means “the Anointed One.”
In the
verses that follow our Subject Text,
Jesus has lead Peter, James, and John high up on a mountain where they witness
Jesus transfigured right before them. His clothes became blinding white. Then
Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus and a cloud enveloped the three. The three
disciples heard God’s voice coming from the cloud saying, “This is my Son, whom
I love. Listen to him!” Then the cloud lifted and Moses and Elijah were gone as
well. In the minds of the disciples, and most other Jews for that matter, the
revelation of who Jesus was as depicted by these two events would have caused
them to believe that God would now destroy the Roman oppression of the Jews and
restore the glory of Israel as a sovereign nation until the end of time as God
had promised. That’s not an unreasonable belief based on God’s promise that one
from the line of David would sit on Israel’s throne for all eternity (Isa
9:6-7). All the Jews were well aware of this promise and anticipated the day
when it would come to pass. The Jews, at least the disciples, would have
believed that that day had arrived with the coming of Jesus. What they didn’t
realize was that much had to be accomplished before that day would actually be
realized. There was still a journey that Jesus needed to make before God’s
kingdom could be realized in its full glory. But it’s not a journey humanity
would expect an Anointed King to make. Jesus knew that His journey would
eventually lead to a seat on an eternal throne but first He had to complete the
Journey To The Cross.
Text Analysis
31He then began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders,
chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after
three days rise again.
Just when
the disciples thought they were on the verge of witnessing the restoration of
Israel under the rule of their long-awaited Messiah, Jesus sets them straight
in v. 31 when He tells them that He
will be put to death by the very people who should have led the celebratory
procession of His coming. It is hard to imagine how the disciples must have
felt at that moment. Try and put yourself in their shoes. They believed they
were on the precipice of being eyewitnesses to the fulfillment of God’s
greatest promise to His people. What are they supposed to think now? First
there was elation and anticipation and now there is fear and despair. It seems
clear by the context of everything that would come to pass with respect to
Jesus’ suffering and death, that the disciples didn’t hear anything else that
Jesus told them that would happen after that. He clearly said that He would
rise to life again after being dead for three days. However, once they heard
Him say that He would be killed, their minds turned off to everything else.
Everyone had a plan for Jesus and they had a plan for themselves with respect
to Jesus but none of those plans included suffering, pain and death for Jesus
or for themselves. But Jesus’ plan was destined from the very beginning. Jesus’
plan wasn’t the restoration of Israel as a sovereign nation, it was the
restoration of relationship between God and all humanity and the day would come
when the disciples would understand that, but it wouldn’t be this day. On this
day, they couldn’t, or maybe wouldn’t, accept that plan. “Their Master had
spoken too explicitly for them to be in any doubt as to His meaning. What they
were ignorant of was why. With all He had said, Jesus had not yet been able to
make that plain. They will never know till the Passion has become a fact
accomplished.”[1]
32He spoke plainly
about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
So
before we go too far, notice who is involved here besides Jesus. That’s right,
Peter! The same Peter who you recall in the text preceding our Subject Text was the one who confessed
that Jesus was the Christ; “the Anointed One!” So now Peter is rebuking God’s
Anointed One! Be honest, don’t you feel a little embarrassed for Peter sometimes?
Well I would if I weren’t just like him. One minute I’m on my face at the feet
of Jesus confessing that He is the Lord of my life and the next minute I’m
waging my finger in His face complaining about His plan for my life. Peter is
the one who gets out of the boat to walk on the water because in that moment He
has enough faith to walk on water. He is also the one who begins to sink
moments later because his faith isn’t as strong as he first believed. At one
moment I believe that God can use my ministry to reach even the hardest heart
so that I can proclaim the Gospel message with complete confidence. Then I
encounter opposition and I begin to question whether or not I could even teach
a kindergarten Sunday school class effectively. I love Peter because he is
real. I’m sure there are countless believers who are able to follow Jesus
without question or reservation but I’m not one of those people. I believe even
while I doubt. I obey even as I question. I proceed even though I have
reservations. Peter believed that Jesus was “the Anointed One” but he couldn’t
or wouldn’t believe that Jesus’ way was the right way. “God’s revelation of
Jesus’ word is so foreign to men that all Jesus’ speaking can be done only in
pictorial language. Only God himself can open up such pictorial language for
men…[V. 32] speaks of the direct
unconcealed speaking of Jesus…The content of the direct word of Jesus is the
suffering and death of the Son of man. The word of the cross is the dissolution
of all pictorial speech: ‘The mystery which has previously been hidden and is
now unconcealed is the suffering of the Son of Man.’ For Jesus’ word of power
over demons, sin and the law remains a concealed word so long as it is not
understood in the light of Jesus’ unconcealed word concerning his suffering and
death. In understanding the word of God, there is thus mirrored the thought
that [Mark] wished his gospel to be understood as a passion story with extended
introduction. In that Jesus’ words and deeds, together with his death and resurrection,
are thus proclaimed by [Mark] as the word of God, the transition to the ‘word
of the cross and resurrection’ as the decisive subject-matter of the [New
Testament] proclamation becomes readily intelligible.”[2]
33But when Jesus
turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!”
he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
If
you doubt Jesus’ resolve to complete the task that only He was qualified to
complete, v. 33 should remove any
doubt. Christians often fail to recognize that Satan is always lurking
somewhere in the shadows behind the opposition to God’s plan of belief and
salvation. We fail to recognize, to our disadvantage, that Satan will use
anyone or anything to obstruct God’s offer of salvation through Jesus. The
objective is always the same even if the method changes. Here, Satan is trying
to use Peter to derail God’s plan of salvation but Jesus won’t stand for it and
puts a Satan-influenced Peter in his place with a very harsh and direct rebuke
when He says, “Get behind me, Satan!” But it’s the next thing Jesus says that
we should all pay close attention to when He says to Peter that he is focused
on his own plan and purpose as opposed to God’s plan and purpose. Peter’s plan
was self-centered while God’s plan was other-centered. Like Peter, any time we
insist on following our own plan for our lives as opposed to seeking and
following God’s plan for our lives, we play right into Satan’s hands to
obstruct the message of the Gospel either through our words or through our
deeds. Peter and the disciples loved Jesus and wanted to protect Him so their
reaction wasn’t necessarily unreasonable. The real question we must ask
ourselves is: Why didn’t they want Jesus to suffer and die? I don’t doubt that
they loved Him, but I suspect it was because they left everything to follow Him
and they believed He was the Messiah they were waiting for. But a tortured and
dead Messiah was of no use to them and their plans. “Unknowingly, the disciples
were trying to prevent Jesus from going to the cross and thus fulfilling his
mission on earth…their job was not to guide and protect Jesus, but to follow
him. Only after Jesus’ death and resurrection would they fully understand why
he had to die.”[3]
34Then he called the
crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
The
fact that Jesus included the crowd that had followed Him together with the
disciples makes it abundantly clear that His instruction in v. 34 is intended for everyone. Can we
be honest with each other for a minute? Everyone thinks that belief in Jesus is
the biggest hurdle to overcome. But many faithful Christian will tell you that
overcoming the hurdle of initial belief was a piece of cake compared to the
life that follows. Jesus’ instruction in v. 34 is what follows for everyone who
wants to be known as a faithful “follower” of Christ. Being a “follower” means
exactly what is implied by that title. Jesus expects us to “follow” the same
path He took. Jesus’ path was punctuated by the cross. So our lives must also
include a cross. But what does the cross look like in our lives?
The cross looks
like the trials in my friend’s life I told you about at the beginning. The
cross is making a commitment to live a life of obedience to God in accordance
with the Scriptures regardless of the cost. The cross means loving those who
hate you and persecute you. The cross means praying for those who seek to
destroy you. The cross means preaching the Gospel even when you know people
will hate you for it. The cross means caring for all those who are in need
whether they believe the same thing you do or not. The cross means seeking reconciliation
and relationship when anger and hatred is justified. The cross means dropping
the plans we have for our lives at the feet of Jesus and accepting His plan for
our lives instead. The cross means bearing one another’s burdens. The cross
means putting to death our old sinful lives and seeking Jesus’ righteousness
for our lives. The cross means being able to honestly pray that God’s will be
done in and through our lives. “Jesus returns the rebuke in front of the other disciples,
thus letting them know that ‘the things of God’ are not in line with human
expectations and preferences.
The first clear
teaching on messiahship becomes then the occasion for the first clear teaching
on what it means to follow this Messiah, namely, denying oneself, taking up the
cross and following Jesus. It is a summons to pour out and give away one’s
life, and to stand boldly alongside the Messiah who is degraded by this world
but glorified by God. The shape of Jesus’ messiahship is also the pattern of
discipleship: bearing a cross, losing our life, despising the opinion of
worldly people so that we may remain loyal to the One whose testimony to our
worth alone counts.”[4]
35For whoever wants to
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the
gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole
world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange
for his soul?
There
is nothing unnatural about self-preservation unless self-preservation becomes
the most important thing in our lives; more important than our devotion to
Jesus or our service to others. At that point, self-preservation becomes
self-deification. Meaning, we make ourselves more important than Jesus because
Jesus gave up his life for others; we make ourselves out to be god. Everything
about Jesus and His ministry is backwards to the way we normally think things
should be. Jesus is saying that we miss the point of life if we are living only
for ourselves. The first priority of life is to be in relationship with Jesus.
Life finds meaning in relationship to Jesus. The more we clamor to preserve our
lives the farther we drift from the eternal glory that awaits those who are
faithful followers to the end of their lives. Vv. 35-37 make very clear that there is something far more
important than the preservation of our earthly lives—the preservation of that
part of us that is eternal, the soul. Jesus wants us to think long and hard
about the choices we make in our lives. Is the preservation of our earthly life
really more important than the preservation of our eternal life? The choice,
according to Jesus is clear, we can preserve our earthly life and sacrifice our
eternal soul or we can pour out our earthly life in devotion to Jesus and service
to others and reserve our place in eternity with Jesus and all those who
likewise surrendered their lives for the mission and message of the Gospel. It’s
easy in theory I know. But it isn’t in practice. That’s why Jesus associated it
with the cross. Nothing about the cross is easy. The cross means sacrifice. The
cross means pain. The cross means death. But the cross also leads to abundant
joy in this life and eternal glory in the next.
“Discipleship
is not a mystical, unmediated union with Jesus, a spirituality severed from
historical knowledge of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. For believers
after the Incarnation, Jesus Christ is known through the proclaimed word of the
gospel. When confronted by the call to discipleship, disciples do not have a
‘both…and’ choice—both Christ and their own lives. They stand before an
‘either…or’ choice. The claim of Jesus is a total and exclusive one. It does
not allow a convenient compartmentalization of natural life and religious life,
of secular and sacred. The whole person stands under Christ’s claim…Suppose one
were to gain ‘the whole word’—everything one could possibly hope for—at the
cost of one’s soul? It would be a poor bargain, according to Jesus. ‘The world’
one can live without, but when one loses one’s personhood or being, what can
one give in exchange for it?...Those who strive desperately to preserve their
souls do not in fact know the value of the soul. Apart from God, the soul is
the one thing without compare. It takes the word of Jesus to teach the infinite
worth of the human soul, and he alone is sufficient to preserve it.”[5]
38If anyone is ashamed
of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man
will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy
angels.”
If
the words in v. 38 don’t frighten
you and make you think long and hard about your Christian witness then you had
best go back and read them again. What does it mean to be ashamed of Jesus or
His words? It means that we cower under the harsh criticism of an unbelieving
world when it comes to insisting that Jesus and only Jesus is the Way, the
Truth, and the Life and everything else that claims superiority to Jesus is a
lie. It means that we are afraid of being rejected if we claim allegiance to
Jesus. It means we don’t want our friends to make fun of us when they find out
we believe in Jesus. It means we don’t want to be labeled by our neighbors as
religious nuts or kooks. It means we don’t want to be seen by our co-workers as
ignorant rubes who believe in fairytales. It means denying Jesus in the face of
persecution. We want all the benefits that accrue to being followers of Jesus
but we don’t want to pay the price of being Jesus’ followers.
Jesus
was speaking of the generation of humanity at that time but his condemnation
extends to every succeeding generation as well. He called them adulterous and
sinful. “Adulterous” is meant to define someone who is unfaithful to the One to
whom they have pledged their allegiance. They are sinful because they fail to
devote their lives to the only One who is able to forgive their sins and make
atonement for their sins. When Jesus speaks of the time when He comes in His
Father’s glory together with his army of angels, He is referring to the Second
Coming and the final judgment. At that point, it will be too late to stand up
for what you say you believe. You’re sinful life and your failed witness will
condemn you. In the same way that you were ashamed to be associated with Jesus
during your earthly life, Jesus will be ashamed to be associated with you
during your eternal life.
“The motive for
denial of Jesus and his words is shame born out of an anxiety for one’s life
and a basic unwillingness to be made an object of contempt in the world.
Ashamed of past association with the Lord, the decision to seek approval from
the world rather than from him exposes the Lord himself to contempt. This
defines the seriousness of denial in terms of its immediate consequences for
the world before whom Jesus and the gospel must be confessed…Denial confirms
the world in its idolatrous character and approves the unfaithfulness to God
expressed in its rejection of Jesus and of those who display uncompromising
loyalty to him. Denial, however, entails ultimate consequences for the man [or
woman] who is ashamed of Jesus, for the Son of Man will expose him [or her] to
contempt when he comes to execute the final judgment…The denial of Jesus
entails the denial of the final Judge himself.”[6]
Application
Falsely
accused because of her association with Christ and deeply wounded by someone
she has loved sacrificially, I got a message from my friend this morning when I
asked how she was holding up under the weight of her cross. Her words were
adamant, even defiant, when she told me she would never turn her back on Jesus. It’s easy to be faithful when you’re
not tripping over stones in the path or twisting your ankles in ruts or
potholes. But what does your faith look like when the weight of the cross
you’ve been lugging around for weeks or months or years is digging into your
back? What does your faith look like when if feels like you might be crushed at
any moment under the weight of your cross?
“Jesus
today has many who love his heavenly kingdom, but few who carry his cross; many
who yearn for comfort, few who long for distress. Plenty of people he finds to
share his banquet, few to share his fast. Everyone desires to take part in his
rejoicing, but few are willing to suffer anything for his sake. There are many
that follow Jesus as far as the breaking of bread, few as far as drinking the
cup of suffering; many that revere his morality, few that follow him in the
indignity of his cross; many that love Jesus as long as nothing runs counter to
them…Those who love Jesus for his own sake, not for the sake of their own
comfort, bless him in time of trouble and heartache as much as when they are
full of consolation.”[7]
[1]
W. Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s
Greek Testament, Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
1983), p. 404.
[2]
Colin Brown, gen. ed., New International
Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 3, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1986), p. 1109.
[3]
Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, and Dave Veerman,
Life Application New Testament Commentary,
Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), pp. 182-183.
[4]
David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the
New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 205.
[5]
James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to
Mark—The Pillar New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002), p. 258.
[6]
William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark—The
New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), pp. 310-311.
[7]
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ,
trans. Ronald Knox and Michael Oakley, (New York, NY: Sheed and Ward, 1959),
2.9, pp. 76-77.
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