“Only One Cross”
Psalm 22:23-31 and Mark 8:31-38
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
2/25/24
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me
but heard when I cried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
May your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him.
28 For dominion belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations.
29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.
30 Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord
31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it. (NRSV)
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. 32 He said all this quite openly.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33 But 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 wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For 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. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those 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.” (NRSV)
The well-known and beloved preacher and teacher Fred Craddock once quoted another popular preacher who had said that preachers can’t “be successful preaching the cross of Jesus. It is not a message people want to hear,” the man said. “They already have too many problems of their own.”
With tongue in cheek, Craddock said, “It’s no wonder [that guy] is popular.”
Paul would agree. In fact, Craddock’s jab comes as a fruit of his own reading of Paul who calls the cross “foolishness,” and “a stumbling block.” (1Corinthians 1:18, 23)
Is that still true for us? Let’s be honest; our culture has, for the most part, domesticated the cross. For many, it’s just a fashionable trinket to be worn on a necklace. But the cross of Jesus is not jewelry. Like Paul says, it’s a scandal. It’s something to be borne, not worn. For people in the sphere of first century Rome, wearing a cross around one’s neck would be like someone today wearing an electric chair pendant.
The cross calls all Christian believers to remember who they are and what it costs to follow one particular convict who died on one of countless thousands of Roman crosses.
In today’s reading, Jesus warns his disciples that he will soon die, because a life of faithfulness to God has profound consequences. Peter will hear none of this. He still believes that Jesus will lead Israel in the apocalyptic battle in which they will defeat Rome, once and for all. Imagine his dismay when he declares his faith and his loyalty only to hear Jesus turn on him saying, “Get behind me, Satan! [Y]ou are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Then, an impassioned Jesus gathers the crowd and says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
This unnerving challenge does far more than rebuke and remediate Peter with a dose tough love. Peter’s challenge returns Jesus to the wilderness. In Peter’s defiance, Jesus faces anew the temptation to dominate—to achieve victory through bloodshed. While the nations might love leaders who incite violence and preach nationalistic fanaticism, such means are simply not alternatives for the Christ and his followers.
I think Mark wants us to read Jesus’ unsettling words as his own steadfast refusal to give in to worldly fears and means. Jesus declares his unwavering commitment to the path of holiness, compassion, and peace.
When we’re tempted to trust human ways and means, Jesus calls us to take up our own crosses and follow him. He invites us to join him in beating the sword of the cross into the plowshare of resurrection grace.
Our crosses may be revealed in many ways, but there are not many different little crosses for us to bear. When all is said and done, there’s only one cross, because we have moved into the realm of metaphor. Our cross is itself the life of faithfulness to the counter-cultural Christ. Our cross is the path of discipleship.
So, our cross calls us to the JAMA food pantry, to Family Promise, into the lives of offenders at the Day Reporting Center. It sends us to advocate for people who are ignored and oppressed. It takes us into the lives of neighbors who grieve, who are sick and lonely. It leads us into prayer and study where, through honest reflection, we become vulnerable so that we might be strengthened. Because the cross also calls us to cease our striving for a day, it has brought us into this sanctuary.
In Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, there’s a powerful little scene in which Sophia says to Celie: “Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for God to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.”
When we come to worship as willing to share God with others as to seek God for ourselves, God shows up. And in that gathering, where we share stories and support, we begin to understand what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus.
Jesus took up his cross long before the chief priests and the scribes coerced Pilate to execute him on a pair of rough, wooden beams. Jesus’ own cross was and continues to be our need borne of our brokenness. And because Jesus comes not to condemn…but to redeem, he never abandons us to our self-inflicted sufferings. Indeed, his prayer from his cross is for us: Father, forgive them!
Years ago, I read an article about a then-young, African-American attorney in Alabama named Bryan Stevenson. The first sentence of the article was a set up. “For nearly fifteen years,” it said, “his conviction has kept him on death row.”
Mr. Stevenson’s conviction was not for some violent, capitol offense. His conviction was that “no one is beyond hope…[or] redemption.” He believes that God called him “to be a witness for hope, [and] for justice” by working with death row inmates to overturn execution verdicts in a state in which, at that time, the average capitol case lasted about three days.
Bryan Stevenson founded and is still active in the Equal Justice Initiative. And he knows that most of the men with whom he works are guilty. He also knows that just because the state gives up on them doesn’t mean that God does. Stevenson discovered that for almost every man on Alabama’s death row, their crimes mark the brutal culmination of their own experiences of relentless abuse and suffering. He doesn’t try to excuse their actions or to put dangerously damaged people back on the streets. Nonetheless, following Jesus, he says, “[We] we are all more than our worst act.”
Stevenson goes where the cross has been left lying on the ground. Taking up that cross, he follows Jesus into what has become the chaotic and destructively violent pain of others.
“There are times when we get overwhelmed and discouraged…,” he says, “but I have learned that God’s grace is sufficient…[And] I feel really privileged to see…extraordinary…acts of grace, acts of love, acts of redemption, that I wish the whole world could see.”
The Lenten journey of shouldering Jesus’ cross guides us to our own death row. It sends us to Friday where we take up our cross and die with Christ. On that journey, we do experience discouragement and pain, because it is, so often, into the discouragement and pain of the world that God leads us. And all along the way, we will be privileged to witness “extraordinary…acts of grace…love…[and] redemption.”
As disciples, we follow and share Christ. We involve ourselves in the blessed things that God is doing in our midst. And through our faithfulness to the journey of Jesus’ cross, there will be many people, ourselves included, who will catch a glimpse of the ever-unfolding miracle of Resurrection.
No comments:
Post a Comment