MARK 8:27-END
27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
I would like to concentrate on the end of the passage for today’s sermon. The demand, and it is a demand of Jesus, to carry our cross. Verse 34:
‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
What does this mean?
Have you ever worked and worked at something, you’re trying your best and it just doesn’t seem to be going right? Perhaps it was at work, maybe in a close relationship or a friendship that was going wrong. You think you’re doing the right thing, you have upheld your responsibilities (or at least, you assume you did), you felt like you were being reasonable, and yet it has all backfired, it all goes pear shaped and you think ‘what on earth is going on!’ Or maybe you are unwell and have a chronic mental or physical health condition and life just seems, seems too difficult sometimes, yet you carry on because it’s better than the alternative of losing yourself to despair.
One could say that you are ‘carrying your cross, your, burden if you like.’ You keep ploughing on, because, what other choice is there?
Victor Frankl, was a very famous psychotherapist and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camps. During his time there he noticed something; he found those who spent a lot of their time hoping for liberation, they didn’t survive for very long. This is because, when liberation didn’t come when they wanted or expected it to, they lost hope, and they didn’t last much longer after that. They found their meaning in the thing that they hoped for, a hope to be away from the torments they were suffering. Frankl says, no, you find meaning in your experiences of your daily life, even if your suffering you must find meaning in it. Perhaps your suffering will be a lesson to others, or perhaps it will build your character somehow, perhaps it will teach you patience, or show you what you can endure. He followed the philosopher Nietzsche in his thinking who said ‘He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.’
His ability to find meaning in his life, helped him to survive. And he says, you need a reason to survive, and it’s got to be yours. And also, he didn’t just survive, but he kept his humanity. Many of those he was imprisoned with and we’re brutalised with him. Many of them became brutes themselves. Inflicting suffering on others.
Frankl chose his why that gave his suffering meaning. And he was able to remain human, despite all that was thrown at him. He didn’t lose his sense of right and wrong, he didn’t become like the Nazis
That is all one way in which ‘carry our cross’ our burden, in a secular way If you like. His cross was to ensure his suffering and his pain, to find meaning and purpose in it, he imagined himself giving lectures in the future about his experiences
(For more details of this, check out the brilliant video here, https://youtu.be/eELrUv48kgY)
He had a ‘why’ that was strong
What is life demanding of you right now? What is the load that you are carrying. How will you face it. What is Your why?
And then we come back to our passage ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
This saying of Jesus, is sanitized these days I feel; we have crosses as jewellery around our necks or in our ears or even on our hands or even in tattoos. They are all over our churches, all nice and clean, polished to a shimmer sheen.
Now hear me correctly, I’m not saying that this is a bad thing. But Jesus’ contemporaries really knew what the cross meant. It would mean that you were going to die. it was bloody, it is torturous. Carrying the cross meant carrying your own means of execution upon your back. Knowing that you would be nailed to it. To know that, and still follow him, that takes balls!
It’s interesting how prophetic this is as many of the disciples were killed for their faith. And that’s the demand, taking up our cross for the gospel ultimately means living out our lives for the gospel, for Christ and for him alone. The disciples’ experiences and the things they went through were lived out in the context of the gospel. The gospel was their why. That the perspective, the lens if you like, through which you see all of your experiences.
Now, In our own context, I don’t think that many of us are being called to such martyrdom, such sacrifice. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t feel the weight of this responsibility.
This is not so fun to speak about on Sunday morning, life is hard as it is and now there is another burden, we need to do all this work for God as well? I think it’s especially hard for the Christian; because sometimes, we don’t see the benefit of what we are doing for years if not decades if not this side of eternity. When we have spent ages and ages serving others sacrificially, and nothing seems to change.
Losing our lives for Jesus and doing his work sometimes doesn’t look like you’re saving it.
So what do we do?
We need to relearn what it means to be human.
I remember hearing a few years ago, about a very famous teaching, its from something called ‘The Westminster Confession’ it says this:
‘What is the chief end of man?’ Or in other words, ‘what is the purpose of human beings, why are we here?’ It asks the ultimate question of all of us, one that we must take seriously.
And the next line says this:
The chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.
The purpose of human beings, is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.
Glorifying God, the meaning is obvious, it means worshipping him. It means living our lives for him. It means, putting him first! Not ourselves. Our whole purpose is to glorify God, and so in everything that we go through, in all of the circumstances of our lives, no matter how dark, no matter how deep, that is our why
Jesus teaches his disciples, and he teaches us as well, to see our lives in a new light. Our own lives in which we promote ourselves and our own ambitions is replaced with ‘the divine logic of triumph through death.’ A life of sacrifice glorifies God, because it recognises that our lives are not only our own, but our creator has a claim on them. Remember Jesus is God, and he says ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’
Now I imagine I may be scaring some of you out of your seats right now. I’ve been coming to church for years, and I have never heard this. But here’s the thing. It is, most definitely worth it. It’s definitely worth it.
When we deny ourselves for Jesus, yes it’s hard, yes there are tough times. Christians don’t get an easy ride. But it is so, so worth it. I’m still learning this, just as much as everybody I will be learning this for the rest of my days. I remember recently when I was praying and I said, God, you know, I’m doing all of this work, and I’m doing it for you. And look what’s happening, it’s all going to pot and I feel awful and I just think, ‘its not worth it this’ I know people have devoted their lives to serve God, and they have been taken away from us in some of the most cruel ways, cancer and Alzheimer’s and other horrible conditions. It’s moments like that that you may want to say, ‘it’s not worth it this Lord, look at what I have sacrificed for you, and look at what is happening to me.
And that is the moment, right then and there. That is the moment, when the risen Jesus turns up. When he says, ‘I know it’s hard isn’t it, in this life you will have trouble, things will not always go your way and yet take heart, for I have overcome the world, through me, you will live forever.’ He tells me that through his death and resurrection, so I will be resurrected on the last day, and see him face to face, and he will say to me ‘see, I told you it was worth it, didn’t I?’
When we all go to see our maker, our response will be, a resounding yes and amen.