“27 And 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?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah;
and others, one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say
that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he strictly
charged them to tell no one about him.
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must
suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the
scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this
plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and
seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you
are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
34 And calling the
crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever
would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and
the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole
world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?
38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful
generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the
glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:27-38 (Esv)
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me.”
These are the words of Jesus right after he gets done
rebuking Peter, calling him Satan and telling him that he has in his mind the
things of man, not the things of God. They were harsh words. And they are hard
words to hear. They don’t quite make sense to us.
What does this mean, to pick up your cross and follow Jesus,
to save your life by losing it?
Peter is having a hard time swallowing the cross. He just
confessed Jesus to be the Christ. It is a confession of profound hope and
optimism. He knows Jesus has caused a bit of a stir. He knows that Jesus has
made his enemies in the world and that people are plotting to kill him in
Jerusalem and if Jesus is a mere man it is only a matter of time before they
catch up to him. The disciples follow him at great risk to their own
well-being. But it is a risk they are willing to take, because they believe he
is the Christ, the Messiah.
And for them, this entails the dream of Shangri-la. For them
this is the fruition of the Jewish myths that Paul warns Titus about, the type
of malarkey you find in the “Left Behind” series, Premillenialism and post
millennialism the promise of a golden millennium. It was that sort of fantasy,
that has ever plagued the church with fanciful readings of Revelation that
whole heartedly ignore the rest of the Bible, or cherry pick and force read it
to comply, that caused most of Israel to miss their messiah when he came. Glory
and victory factored in to the concept of the messiah, a golden age of
government, and peace, that would make David’s reign on earth pale in
comparison. These things factored in. Victory over the enemies of Israel as a
nation, the vanquishing of the Romans, these things factored in to their
concept of a Messiah. Defeat, the cross,
betrayal and death did not.
But the minute Peter confesses Jesus to be the Christ, Jesus
begins speaking of his defeat, his betrayal, his death. At least, this is the
way the disciples would hear it. Three days and he would rise again? This
didn’t make sense to them. What they heard is Jesus predicting his own death. A
death they knew could be avoided. A death they didn’t think was necessary
because they didn’t quite grasp the nature of the problem Jesus came to recon
with. But the death of Jesus would not be defeat but victory.
Pick up your cross and follow me, he tells the disciples.
And to follow Jesus is to do just that. To accept his forgiveness and grace is
to forsake your own attempts at keeping the law, and to die to yourself. To
follow Jesus means to put your life at risk for all the attacks of the devil.
“It is enough for a student to be like his teacher.” To follow Christ is to
invite the ridicule with which the world reviled our Lord. It is to lose your
life in him. It is this that happened in Baptism, when you were buried into his
death. It is this that happened in baptism when you were raised to walk in the
newness of life. Now you have lost the
life of the old way, the life of the law constantly trying to keep a ledger of
good works vrs. Sin. Constantly trying to preserve your dignity, your ability
to stand before God on account of your own righteousness, to pull yourself up
by your own boot straps. To secure your own place. No, that life is gone. Now
you have the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness that comes through
death and dying to this world and it’s ways of righteousness. A righteousness
that comes with humility, and the indignity of accepting charity, of realizing
that when it comes to the righteousness of God, your only option is that of a
beggar. And to our Old Adam this comes as a cross. But in the cross there is
victory because our Lord rose again on the third day, and we now walk in the
newness of life, righteous and having salvation.
No comments:
Post a Comment