Take Up Your Cross
9-13-15 (Proper 19/Ordinary 24 B, Semi-Continuous)
James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38
The conversation was simple enough - the question even simpler: “Who do people say that I am?” asks Jesus as he and the disciples are walking together on the way to Caesarea Philippi. It seems like such a casual question, as if Jesus is asking “Do you think it will rain today?” but as we soon see, the question is a little deeper than that as well. And as the disciples start to give Jesus some results to what is possibly the first public opinion poll in written history, we start to get an idea, both of what the disciples may be thinking about who Jesus is and about who the public thinks he is as well. They answer him readily - “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others say one of the prophets.” It seems nobody’s quite sure just who Jesus is, exactly - it’s still relatively early in his ministry and every one of his miraculous works so far has been matched with a command to secrecy, though very few people have been able to keep the secret - and really, how could you keep such a wondrous thing secret from the world? People have been talking - they’ve been trying to figure out what this Jesus is all about, and they have some ideas, but nothing is certain.
But Jesus isn’t as interested in what these other people think now as much as he wants to know the answer to his next question. You can almost hear the change in his voice, the focus that enters his eyes as he turns to the disciples again and asks them flat out: “Who do you say that I am?” These are the men who have seen the most of Jesus, who have experienced both his power and his teaching, who have seen him at his most vulnerable as well as his most glorious… who do they say he is?
Is there a pause here? A pregnant moment of silence as the disciples search themselves for a satisfactory answer? Do they stop in the middle of their tracks as the question is posed to them? Did Peter recognize the weight behind the question before he rushed into his answer? We don’t really know, but the text gives us at least the impression that Peter does here what he does best: shoot first, ask questions later.
Peter’s answer is simple enough - “You are the Messiah.” He speaks the plain truth, plain and unadorned, and Jesus once again commands the disciples to secrecy before he begins to teach them what he is about to undergo: the betrayal, the pain, the suffering, and even his eventual death. And it’s at this point that Peter then blunders ahead and sticks his foot in his mouth. It’s a passage we’re ever so familiar with - we may have even found ourselves in that situation before in which we say things before we even really understand what we’re talking about or responding to.
Peter’s encounter here with Jesus is a perfect pairing with the admonitions found in this section of James’ letter as the impulsive apostle yet again lets his tongue steer him into dangerous waters. Peter takes Jesus aside - he begins to rebuke the teacher for his teachings: what Jesus is saying can’t happen, he shouldn’t say such things because they’ll start to scare people, surely he’s not going to die if he’s the Messiah - he’s supposed to become the King, the one who rescues them from Rome and sets them back up as God’s chosen people! But because Peter doesn’t understand, because Peter presumes to know better than the Messiah himself what is right and wrong… Peter ends up being the one who is rebuked for having his mind on earthly things when it should be on the divine, instead.
It’s so easy to do - so easy to take our eyes away from the race we’re constantly running, to let our own opinions and interpretations steer us in the direction we want to go instead of the direction Christ is calling us to follow… and all it takes is but one stray spark from our tongues to set off a great fire. We say something ugly and horrible without even thinking about it, but someone who hears it says “they’re a member of First Presbyterian? Well I guess I’ll never go there.” And suddenly, because of the things we’ve done, we risk pushing people away from Christ instead of calling people toward Him. And we don’t even realize we’ve done it.
Jesus tells the disciples and the crowd around them, “If any want to become my followers, they must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” It’s a verse we’ve heard so many times and used in so many ways - it’s been used throughout history for as many terrible things as it has been used for good, justifying the suffering of oppression and slavery, encouraging women to stay in abusive relationships, and admonishing people not to seek the changes that they need to live a better life, whether through civil rights, economic change, or social justice. People have been told time and time again “Well that’s just your cross to bear, I guess,” and applauded for being people of faith who act like the suffering servant, despite being in situations that even Jesus himself sought to change during his earthly ministry. As we have taught such understandings and even encouraged them, we’ve let ourselves get set off course once again. Denying oneself to seek Christ is honorable, and yet if we do not seek to make our world a better place through our obedience, then we nevertheless miss our calling - we set our minds on the earthly idol of suffering for suffering’s sake and lose sight of the heavenly calling to become more like Christ, who emptied himself so that he could better see and minister to the deepest needs of those around him.
And so it was that, as I was looking at these passages this week, I realized that Jesus’ call to us to take up our cross and to follow him is actually Jesus giving us another chance to answer his question anew: “Who do you say that I am?” It’s a simple question - but it’s the most important question we can ever ask. Who do we say that Christ is when we profess our faith? It shapes our identity. It determines our values and our vocation. It tells us what is important and determines the way we respond to everything and everyone around us. It is, ultimately, the cross we are called to take up as we seek to follow Christ. Who do we say that Christ is? If we say that Christ is a healer and we do not ourselves seek to reach out and heal others, then we fail to take up our crosses. If we call Christ teacher and friend, but do not ourselves seek to educate, uplift, and support, then we ultimately fail in our following. Whatever it is we confess about Christ and lift up as being the most important aspects of what it means when we say that “Jesus is Lord,” these are the same things that we will be held the most accountable to in our lives as we seek to follow the Christ we confess.
Who do you say that Christ is? And what will that mean for you as you seek to follow Him? What aspects of ourselves will we be called to deny in order to truly pick up our cross and follow Jesus? What things are we being called to sacrifice in the name of the Gospel? It seems like such a simple question, and yet it can take a lifetime to answer and enact, and yet it is as hard as picking up a cross and carrying it every day. May God give us a spirit of willingness, a spirit of selflessness, that we may ever seek to deny ourselves and become more like Christ - and may God grant that as we make those sacrifices in the name of Christ - as we sacrifice our comfort, our certainties, our judgments and prejudices, as we sacrifice the things we hold onto the most as central to our faith and not Christ’s faith… as we pick up our cross and carry it mile by mile, day by day… may God grant that we can truly realize the Kingdom of God that awaits us at the end of our journey. To God be the Glory. Amen.
James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38
Take Up Your Cross
The conversation was simple enough - the question even simpler: “Who do people say that I am?” asks Jesus as he and the disciples are walking together on the way to Caesarea Philippi. It seems like such a casual question, as if Jesus is asking “Do you think it will rain today?” but as we soon see, the question is a little deeper than that as well. And as the disciples start to give Jesus some results to what is possibly the first public opinion poll in written history, we start to get an idea, both of what the disciples may be thinking about who Jesus is and about who the public thinks he is as well. They answer him readily - “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others say one of the prophets.” It seems nobody’s quite sure just who Jesus is, exactly - it’s still relatively early in his ministry and every one of his miraculous works so far has been matched with a command to secrecy, though very few people have been able to keep the secret - and really, how could you keep such a wondrous thing secret from the world? People have been talking - they’ve been trying to figure out what this Jesus is all about, and they have some ideas, but nothing is certain.
But Jesus isn’t as interested in what these other people think now as much as he wants to know the answer to his next question. You can almost hear the change in his voice, the focus that enters his eyes as he turns to the disciples again and asks them flat out: “Who do you say that I am?” These are the men who have seen the most of Jesus, who have experienced both his power and his teaching, who have seen him at his most vulnerable as well as his most glorious… who do they say he is?
Is there a pause here? A pregnant moment of silence as the disciples search themselves for a satisfactory answer? Do they stop in the middle of their tracks as the question is posed to them? Did Peter recognize the weight behind the question before he rushed into his answer? We don’t really know, but the text gives us at least the impression that Peter does here what he does best: shoot first, ask questions later.
Peter’s answer is simple enough - “You are the Messiah.” He speaks the plain truth, plain and unadorned, and Jesus once again commands the disciples to secrecy before he begins to teach them what he is about to undergo: the betrayal, the pain, the suffering, and even his eventual death. And it’s at this point that Peter then blunders ahead and sticks his foot in his mouth. It’s a passage we’re ever so familiar with - we may have even found ourselves in that situation before in which we say things before we even really understand what we’re talking about or responding to.
Peter’s encounter here with Jesus is a perfect pairing with the admonitions found in this section of James’ letter as the impulsive apostle yet again lets his tongue steer him into dangerous waters. Peter takes Jesus aside - he begins to rebuke the teacher for his teachings: what Jesus is saying can’t happen, he shouldn’t say such things because they’ll start to scare people, surely he’s not going to die if he’s the Messiah - he’s supposed to become the King, the one who rescues them from Rome and sets them back up as God’s chosen people! But because Peter doesn’t understand, because Peter presumes to know better than the Messiah himself what is right and wrong… Peter ends up being the one who is rebuked for having his mind on earthly things when it should be on the divine, instead.
It’s so easy to do - so easy to take our eyes away from the race we’re constantly running, to let our own opinions and interpretations steer us in the direction we want to go instead of the direction Christ is calling us to follow… and all it takes is but one stray spark from our tongues to set off a great fire. We say something ugly and horrible without even thinking about it, but someone who hears it says “they’re a member of First Presbyterian? Well I guess I’ll never go there.” And suddenly, because of the things we’ve done, we risk pushing people away from Christ instead of calling people toward Him. And we don’t even realize we’ve done it.
Jesus tells the disciples and the crowd around them, “If any want to become my followers, they must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” It’s a verse we’ve heard so many times and used in so many ways - it’s been used throughout history for as many terrible things as it has been used for good, justifying the suffering of oppression and slavery, encouraging women to stay in abusive relationships, and admonishing people not to seek the changes that they need to live a better life, whether through civil rights, economic change, or social justice. People have been told time and time again “Well that’s just your cross to bear, I guess,” and applauded for being people of faith who act like the suffering servant, despite being in situations that even Jesus himself sought to change during his earthly ministry. As we have taught such understandings and even encouraged them, we’ve let ourselves get set off course once again. Denying oneself to seek Christ is honorable, and yet if we do not seek to make our world a better place through our obedience, then we nevertheless miss our calling - we set our minds on the earthly idol of suffering for suffering’s sake and lose sight of the heavenly calling to become more like Christ, who emptied himself so that he could better see and minister to the deepest needs of those around him.
And so it was that, as I was looking at these passages this week, I realized that Jesus’ call to us to take up our cross and to follow him is actually Jesus giving us another chance to answer his question anew: “Who do you say that I am?” It’s a simple question - but it’s the most important question we can ever ask. Who do we say that Christ is when we profess our faith? It shapes our identity. It determines our values and our vocation. It tells us what is important and determines the way we respond to everything and everyone around us. It is, ultimately, the cross we are called to take up as we seek to follow Christ. Who do we say that Christ is? If we say that Christ is a healer and we do not ourselves seek to reach out and heal others, then we fail to take up our crosses. If we call Christ teacher and friend, but do not ourselves seek to educate, uplift, and support, then we ultimately fail in our following. Whatever it is we confess about Christ and lift up as being the most important aspects of what it means when we say that “Jesus is Lord,” these are the same things that we will be held the most accountable to in our lives as we seek to follow the Christ we confess.
Who do you say that Christ is? And what will that mean for you as you seek to follow Him? What aspects of ourselves will we be called to deny in order to truly pick up our cross and follow Jesus? What things are we being called to sacrifice in the name of the Gospel? It seems like such a simple question, and yet it can take a lifetime to answer and enact, and yet it is as hard as picking up a cross and carrying it every day. May God give us a spirit of willingness, a spirit of selflessness, that we may ever seek to deny ourselves and become more like Christ - and may God grant that as we make those sacrifices in the name of Christ - as we sacrifice our comfort, our certainties, our judgments and prejudices, as we sacrifice the things we hold onto the most as central to our faith and not Christ’s faith… as we pick up our cross and carry it mile by mile, day by day… may God grant that we can truly realize the Kingdom of God that awaits us at the end of our journey. To God be the Glory. Amen.
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