Text: Mark 8:27-38
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
In today’s Gospel Reading we hear that the Apostle Peter certainly
did not like the idea of the cross. He did
like Jesus though, for he was one of Jesus’ Apostles. However, Peter, like so many others
throughout the ages, basically did not want to embrace a bloody cross, due to
all the dread and pain attached to it. Simply
stated, he wanted an uncrucified Jesus; he wanted a crossless Jesus. “Give me Jesus, but a Jesus without the
suffering, without the death, without all that anguish, and especially without
all that dirty blood!”
Peter is undoubtedly not alone in his hesitations, for
there is definitely a seductive power at work in our day and age to have an
uncrucified Jesus. Yes, there is a large
attraction among Christians—like you and me—to have a crossless Jesus. “The seduction is not merely to be silent
regarding the crucifixion; it is the temptation to avoid the cross [altogether]. [Preachers are tempted to] pretty up [their]
preaching with a Precious Moment Jesus who just wants the world to have a group
hug and get along. [Parishioners are
attracted to the idea of] lightening up [the] Liturgy with the feel-good music
and language of the culture to make the Gospel more palatable to the taste of
modern man.”[1] This time of year there are some people who just
wish the church could fast-forward through the dreary darkness of Lent or just
skip Good Friday and go right towards Resurrections Sunday.
Regrettably, like the Apostle Peter, we Christians all too
often demonstrate our aversion to the bloody cross by wanting to have the Easter
Season without the Lent Season and Resurrection Sunday without Good
Friday. It is true that we don’t like
the dark valley of the Season of Lent; we don’t like the themes of repentance
and sorrow for sin. We don’t like sound of
the whips, the shame, the blood, the tears, and the agony of Good Friday. It disturbs our modern sensibilities. We would rather hear stories of triumph and splendor,
not loss and humiliation. However, can
we have Resurrection Sunday if we don’t go through Good Friday; can there be
forgiveness of sins without a cross and without a death of the Son of God?
The harsh reality that Peter was confronted with some
two-thousand years ago is that the Gospel that saves is a gory and painful
Gospel. Yes, the Gospel that saves is a
message where Jesus is bloodied, beaten, mocked, and where He seems to lose.
This Biblical reality goes against our way of thinking,
does it not? Nobody likes being a loser
and nobody likes being around losers.
Indeed, it would be better if there was no such thing as losers at all. I mean, we want everyone around us to be a
winner, for our natural way of thinking says that comfort, gain, power and an
increase in status are good and should belong to us and those around us,
whereas, defeat, suffering, pain, and shame are bad and should be avoided, or
at least minimized in conversations. We
want things sugar coated and positive! Thus,
it goes against our common sense way of thinking and it goes against the
chronic niceness embedded in our Midwestern Culture, when we hear about Jesus
having to go to a cross to lose, that is to say, die on a cross between
sinners.
This simply did not make sense according to the Apostle Peter.
It did not make sense that Jesus was
going to suffer and die, that He would apparently lose. This was not pleasant news; it wasn’t
positive and uplifting. This did not
sound like victory according to Peter.
He expected grand things from Jesus; visions of brilliance, success, and
power, not rejection, suffering, and death.
He wanted the Jesus who cast out demons, rebuked the Pharisees, healed
the crippled, and cleared the temple, but not the Jesus who would suffer, die,
and lose. Peter wanted a golden crown,
not a crown of thorns. He wanted Jesus
lifted up on a throne, not a cross. Furthermore,
he surely didn’t want to hear about this gloomy news. How could a cross be positive for the
movement that Jesus had begun? With all
of this stated and as a result, Peter rebuked Jesus. He chewed Jesus out. He reprimanded Jesus for not being the savior that
he expected and the savior that he wanted.
A suffering and bleeding Jesus was just too negative; the cross was just
too scary and pessimistic. Simply
stated, Peter was attempting to separate Jesus from the cross.
As Peter soon came to find out from Jesus’ reply to him,
he was not thinking correctly, but doing the work of Satan. Jesus said to him,
“Get behind me Satan, for
you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Yes, when you and I reject the Jesus of the cross and
when we reject a bleeding and dying Savior to suit our own fancy, we are
actually doing the work of Satan. Dear
friends, bluntly stated, a Jesus without a cross and a Jesus who doesn’t bleed
for mankind is no Jesus at all but a counterfeit jesus, a jesus fabricated from
the lies of hell.
Truly, “Hell is just as happy with those who believe in a
fake jesus as with those who believe in no jesus at all. There is no difference.”[2] A fake jesus standing far off in the distance
cheering you on like a mascot while you attempt to enact your own supposed
spiritual powers towards manmade endeavors, is no real Jesus at all, but a
crossless and bloodless jesus. An
Americanized jesus who promises you health, wealth, and happiness if you only
do ‘this’ or only do ‘that,’ is no real Jesus at all, but a crossless and
bloodless jesus. There is only one
Christ and one Jesus: the Jesus who would undergo great suffering, rejection,
and be killed and rise again after three days. Yes, there is only one Jesus, but there is a
world full of imitations, imitations created in the image of what we want Jesus
to be for us.
The tragic reality is that each of these fake Jesus’,
which are masks worn by demons, “will gladly take you by the hand, walk with
you and talk with you, and lead you safely through
this world until you hear,
‘Well done, good and faithful fool.’
The devil, the world, and our own sinful nature will do
anything and everything to get the cross out of our lives.
Brothers and sisters, repent of your false jesus’ that
you have created through the imagination of your own minds or by the
caricatures of what society wants Jesus to be. Repent, for your mind has been set on human ideology!
Thank goodness that Peter was rebuked by Jesus in our
Gospel reading from today. Thank
goodness that you and I are rebuked from God’s Holy Word today as well. Jesus doesn't beat around the bush. He used stern words with Peter and He uses
stern words with us. However, these
words are not designed to drive us away.
They are designed to place us back where we belong. To put this in another way, the counterfeit jesus
that we desire is the very jesus that we don’t need. Conversely the Jesus that we most want to
resist is the very Jesus that we most need.
In other words, both Peter and you do not need a crossless and bloodless
Jesus, for a jesus without a cross and a jesus who doesn’t bled for you, accomplishes
absolutely nothing for you. Seriously, if
Jesus would have gone to Jerusalem to conquer the Roman Empire and would have
avoided the cross, what would have this accomplishment for mankind? Otherwise stated, if Jesus was a god who
simply came to make you healthy, wealthy, and happy, what would this accomplish
for you? A jesus who primarily is for
helping your children get on the honor role, a jesus who is mainly for helping
you run your business or is chiefly for helping your marriage and sex life to be
great, is a fake jesus, a fake jesus that is powerless to deal with the real
and most important issue of your
sin.
You, who have ears, hear.
You need a Jesus who has a cross and who bleeds for you, for a bleeding and
dying Jesus is the only Jesus that forgives sins, defeats death, defeats the
devil, and satisfies the wrath of God.
Yes, you need a bleeding and dying Jesus.
My friends, the good news of the Gospel is that despite
your failures like Peter, you ‘have’ a bleeding and dying Jesus! Yes, even though the devil, the world, and
our sinful nature would do anything and everything to get the cross out of our
lives, Jesus still went to the cross—for you.
Jesus did not heed to Peter’s rebuke and He doesn’t succumb to our
wishes and/or demands. You see, there
was nothing that would or could keep Jesus from the mission of the cross, a
mission that was for you.
Hear o sinners, with me, our life is in the bleeding and
suffering Savior upon the cross. It was
necessary for the Son of Man to suffer.
He had to suffer and die—for you and for me. The love of Christ knows no other way of
rescue. Therefore, bring on the Lent
Season. Bring on Good Friday. “Bring on the sweat like blood, the vinegar
and the [wounds]. Bring on the hands
that bind, the hands that slap, the hands that nail, the hands that bury. Bring on the lies of the priests, the mocking
of the crowd, the silence of heaven. For
the joy set before Him He endured it all, all for you, for your salvation is
His only joy. Let Him be rejected by the
chief priests for in His rejection by them is your acceptance by the heavenly
Father. Let Him be killed for in His
death is your life. Let Him be buried
for in that tomb He will break the stranglehold of death. Yes, let sin and death and hell have their
way with Him, for in so doing He paves the way to absolution, life, and
everlasting bliss for you and for the world.”[3]
This is the Gospel, the Good News of Mt. Calvary that is
for you. Yes, Christ went the dark way
of the cross—for you. He bled and
suffered—for you. His body and blood are
for you. The plan of salvation is for
you. He had to go to the way of the cross—for
you. He did this to fulfill His
mission—for you. He did this to declare you a blessed Saint and gift you
eternal life. He chose the cross and
chose the suffering—all for you.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Chad
L. Bird, Christ Alone: Meditations and
Sermons (Copyright 2014 Chad L. Bird), 103.
[2] Ibid,
102.
[3] Ibid,
104.
No comments:
Post a Comment