The Gift of Taking Up Your Cross
My sermon notes from September 13th.
This lesson from Mark’s Gospel [Mark 8.27-38] literally changed my life.
Three years ago, I was struggling with a bunch of decisions, one that really came down to one decision. I was wondering if I was being called to leave my home, family and friends in Saginaw, Michigan and pursue the ministry. I had a number of people from my church tell me I should go into the ministry. They saw gifts and talents in me that I did not see, and some that I still do not see in myself. Because of their insistence, I felt I owed it to them to look into the process of candidacy with the ELCA and attending seminary. I was looking into the process so I could find that roadblock and report back to them and say, “You know, I would follow that call, but I can’t because of _insert reason here_. But I could not find that reason. In fact, the more I looked into it, the more it felt like the right thing to do. At the same time, the job that I enjoyed was not as enjoyable as it once was. The budget had been cut and I was called on to do the same programs but with a lot fewer resources. I was conflicted. Do I follow what I think I am being drawn toward, or do I stay and struggle with my job and my family? Am I just looking for a way out? All of these thoughts were weighing on me as I went to church one Sunday and sat in the pew. I really wasn’t paying attention; I was praying for God to give me guidance, direction, a sign. Then I stood for the reading of the Gospel, and Pastor Paulette read, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” My decision was made. Eleven months later, I was taking classes at the Seminary in Gettysburg. Three years later, I am here.
Our church uses a three-year lectionary to determine the lessons for each Sunday. A global committee of churches created the Revised Common Lectionary 26 years ago. Each of the three years is focused primarily on one Gospel, with the Gospel of John broken up and scattered through each of the years. We are in year B, Mark’s year, and at the beginning of Advent we start year C, which will focus on Luke’s Gospel. So while, the specific passage that gave me the motivation to start my pursuit of the ministry comes around this time every three years, Christ’s call to take up our cross and follow him appears in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, and the cost of that discipleship, to save one’s life you must first lose it, appears in all four Gospels. So any message that all four writers of the Gospels included must be really important.
I have always equated taking up your cross with the saying of having a cross to bear. Bearing your cross always seemed to be a burden, a suffering you had to endure. For Christ is was. I’m sure we have seen various movies or TV shows depicting the life of Christ. I want you to think about one of the movies you have seen, and re-watch it in your mind. In those, we usually see him carrying his cross on his way to Calvary. Depending on which depiction you may be thinking of, that image may be more or less graphic. Can you see Jesus struggling with the heavy wooden cross, trying to drag it through the streets of Jerusalem after having been beaten and tortured? Several times along the way, Jesus falls, the weight of the cross is too heavy for him to bear, and he collapses. The weight of the cross is too heavy. When he reaches the top of Calvary, and he is nailed to that cross, it takes a squad of Roman soldiers to lift that heavy cross into an upright position. That cross was heavy, and to take it up, Christ denied himself. On that cross, for our sake, to save our lives, he lost his. That cross was heavy, because it was weighed down with all of our transgressions and sins. It was burdened with our faults and failings.
Jesus knew what he had to do. He explained it to his disciples. “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.” He knew the great suffering was on our account. He knew the rejection was not just by the elders, priests and scribes, but also by his own disciples, and his followers, even by us. We know of Jesus’ divine nature, and that through him we are forgiven and saved. But we, like Peter, have set our minds “not on divine things but on human things.” When we focus on what we want, we want our will to be done, not God’s will. We put things between God and ourselves, and violate the first and greatest commandment. We are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” [Mark 12.30] Anything that gets in the way of that is “setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” When we want our will to be done, and not what is God’s will, we put our mind on human things. At the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that “Thy will be done.” That is setting our mind on divine things. We need to deny what keeps us from being closer to God. We should do what would be pleasing to God in the circumstances of our lives.
People may wonder, why would I follow Christ? After all, he just told the disciples that he is going to his death. Now, he wants them, and me to follow him. Does Jesus want me to die?? I want to let you in on a secret. You are going to die. We all are. No one gets out of this world alive. If you are thinking that way, that Jesus wants me to follow him to death, you missed out on part of what he said. But that’s all right, so did Peter and the disciples.
“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.” [Mark 8.31] But that’s not where the story ends. Yes, Jesus will be rejected and suffer, and die. ” We are going to die any way, by following Christ, that death may involve more suffering and be more painful. Yet, if the story ended there, the words and deeds of a great teacher and philosopher would be valued, and would continue down through time to us today. But that’s not all of what Jesus told them, “and after three days rise again.” They focused on the suffering and death, and not on the resurrection. But by following Christ, death is not the final part of the story. God gave us God’s only begotten son, who, for our salvation, came down from heaven and was made man. Jesus Christ, the God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, became a human being because by being joined in human flesh with us he was able to bring salvation from God to us. Jesus was joined to a life like ours, a life of pain, suffering, loss and death. But we are also joined into a life like his. A mortal life that will end in death, but before that, a life of service, of helping, caring and loving others, and an eternal life with forgiveness and salvation and without pain. Why would we want to follow Jesus, especially to the cross? Because it is in his death on the cross, our lives were saved, forever and ever. We should never be ashamed of him and his words because in them we have been given the gift of eternal life.
So for Jesus, taking up his cross was a horrible burden, but one he did out of love for us. For us, taking up our cross should be a joy; one we do out of love for him. Now when I say we take up our cross, I am not saying we are following him to his death. We have already met him there. When we are baptized, the pastor says these words, or ones similar to them: “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” We meet Christ at the foot of the cross, where he has bared the burden of our sins, transgressions and iniquities. We meet Christ at the foot of the cross, where we have been forgiven for those sins, transgressions and iniquities. We meet Christ at the foot of the cross, where we are joined in a death with him, we may have life eternal through him. We do not need to bear our cross up to Calvary; Christ has done that already. We need to bear our cross, the cross of our baptism, the cross of our calling into the world. We need to take that cross into the world and follow him. Follow his teachings, his example, his ministry and his love and take them into the world. You don’t have to do as I did and go to the seminary, unless that’s where you feel called, but you can follow Christ with the cross of baptism and share your life with the world. When we take this cross into the world and follow Christ, it is a gift, not a burden. A gift that we have been freely given and not a gift we have earned. We can take this gift, and share it with our family, friends, community and the world.
Now, I would like to have you gather into groups of two or three, turn to each other and using your thumb or forefinger, make the sign of the cross on each other’s forehead and say, “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”
This lesson from Mark’s Gospel [Mark 8.27-38] literally changed my life.
Three years ago, I was struggling with a bunch of decisions, one that really came down to one decision. I was wondering if I was being called to leave my home, family and friends in Saginaw, Michigan and pursue the ministry. I had a number of people from my church tell me I should go into the ministry. They saw gifts and talents in me that I did not see, and some that I still do not see in myself. Because of their insistence, I felt I owed it to them to look into the process of candidacy with the ELCA and attending seminary. I was looking into the process so I could find that roadblock and report back to them and say, “You know, I would follow that call, but I can’t because of _insert reason here_. But I could not find that reason. In fact, the more I looked into it, the more it felt like the right thing to do. At the same time, the job that I enjoyed was not as enjoyable as it once was. The budget had been cut and I was called on to do the same programs but with a lot fewer resources. I was conflicted. Do I follow what I think I am being drawn toward, or do I stay and struggle with my job and my family? Am I just looking for a way out? All of these thoughts were weighing on me as I went to church one Sunday and sat in the pew. I really wasn’t paying attention; I was praying for God to give me guidance, direction, a sign. Then I stood for the reading of the Gospel, and Pastor Paulette read, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” My decision was made. Eleven months later, I was taking classes at the Seminary in Gettysburg. Three years later, I am here.
Our church uses a three-year lectionary to determine the lessons for each Sunday. A global committee of churches created the Revised Common Lectionary 26 years ago. Each of the three years is focused primarily on one Gospel, with the Gospel of John broken up and scattered through each of the years. We are in year B, Mark’s year, and at the beginning of Advent we start year C, which will focus on Luke’s Gospel. So while, the specific passage that gave me the motivation to start my pursuit of the ministry comes around this time every three years, Christ’s call to take up our cross and follow him appears in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, and the cost of that discipleship, to save one’s life you must first lose it, appears in all four Gospels. So any message that all four writers of the Gospels included must be really important.
I have always equated taking up your cross with the saying of having a cross to bear. Bearing your cross always seemed to be a burden, a suffering you had to endure. For Christ is was. I’m sure we have seen various movies or TV shows depicting the life of Christ. I want you to think about one of the movies you have seen, and re-watch it in your mind. In those, we usually see him carrying his cross on his way to Calvary. Depending on which depiction you may be thinking of, that image may be more or less graphic. Can you see Jesus struggling with the heavy wooden cross, trying to drag it through the streets of Jerusalem after having been beaten and tortured? Several times along the way, Jesus falls, the weight of the cross is too heavy for him to bear, and he collapses. The weight of the cross is too heavy. When he reaches the top of Calvary, and he is nailed to that cross, it takes a squad of Roman soldiers to lift that heavy cross into an upright position. That cross was heavy, and to take it up, Christ denied himself. On that cross, for our sake, to save our lives, he lost his. That cross was heavy, because it was weighed down with all of our transgressions and sins. It was burdened with our faults and failings.
Jesus knew what he had to do. He explained it to his disciples. “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.” He knew the great suffering was on our account. He knew the rejection was not just by the elders, priests and scribes, but also by his own disciples, and his followers, even by us. We know of Jesus’ divine nature, and that through him we are forgiven and saved. But we, like Peter, have set our minds “not on divine things but on human things.” When we focus on what we want, we want our will to be done, not God’s will. We put things between God and ourselves, and violate the first and greatest commandment. We are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” [Mark 12.30] Anything that gets in the way of that is “setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” When we want our will to be done, and not what is God’s will, we put our mind on human things. At the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that “Thy will be done.” That is setting our mind on divine things. We need to deny what keeps us from being closer to God. We should do what would be pleasing to God in the circumstances of our lives.
People may wonder, why would I follow Christ? After all, he just told the disciples that he is going to his death. Now, he wants them, and me to follow him. Does Jesus want me to die?? I want to let you in on a secret. You are going to die. We all are. No one gets out of this world alive. If you are thinking that way, that Jesus wants me to follow him to death, you missed out on part of what he said. But that’s all right, so did Peter and the disciples.
“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.” [Mark 8.31] But that’s not where the story ends. Yes, Jesus will be rejected and suffer, and die. ” We are going to die any way, by following Christ, that death may involve more suffering and be more painful. Yet, if the story ended there, the words and deeds of a great teacher and philosopher would be valued, and would continue down through time to us today. But that’s not all of what Jesus told them, “and after three days rise again.” They focused on the suffering and death, and not on the resurrection. But by following Christ, death is not the final part of the story. God gave us God’s only begotten son, who, for our salvation, came down from heaven and was made man. Jesus Christ, the God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, became a human being because by being joined in human flesh with us he was able to bring salvation from God to us. Jesus was joined to a life like ours, a life of pain, suffering, loss and death. But we are also joined into a life like his. A mortal life that will end in death, but before that, a life of service, of helping, caring and loving others, and an eternal life with forgiveness and salvation and without pain. Why would we want to follow Jesus, especially to the cross? Because it is in his death on the cross, our lives were saved, forever and ever. We should never be ashamed of him and his words because in them we have been given the gift of eternal life.
So for Jesus, taking up his cross was a horrible burden, but one he did out of love for us. For us, taking up our cross should be a joy; one we do out of love for him. Now when I say we take up our cross, I am not saying we are following him to his death. We have already met him there. When we are baptized, the pastor says these words, or ones similar to them: “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” We meet Christ at the foot of the cross, where he has bared the burden of our sins, transgressions and iniquities. We meet Christ at the foot of the cross, where we have been forgiven for those sins, transgressions and iniquities. We meet Christ at the foot of the cross, where we are joined in a death with him, we may have life eternal through him. We do not need to bear our cross up to Calvary; Christ has done that already. We need to bear our cross, the cross of our baptism, the cross of our calling into the world. We need to take that cross into the world and follow him. Follow his teachings, his example, his ministry and his love and take them into the world. You don’t have to do as I did and go to the seminary, unless that’s where you feel called, but you can follow Christ with the cross of baptism and share your life with the world. When we take this cross into the world and follow Christ, it is a gift, not a burden. A gift that we have been freely given and not a gift we have earned. We can take this gift, and share it with our family, friends, community and the world.
Now, I would like to have you gather into groups of two or three, turn to each other and using your thumb or forefinger, make the sign of the cross on each other’s forehead and say, “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”
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