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Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent – February 25, 2024
Mark 8:31-38
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
When someone is confronted with traumatic news, their response to it often is to say, “No!” Sometimes this “no” comes out quietly, as a gasp or a whisper. Sometimes it is a statement of utter disbelief. “No, this can’t be. No, this can’t be happening.” When news is too shocking, too terrible, it isn’t uncommon for people to be in a state of denial at first. And so the “no” is a denial of a reality that is too difficult to face.
Other times people understand the magnitude of what has happened right away, and so the “no” comes out as a groan or a cry, or even a scream.
Pastors are often with people during, or more often in the aftermath, of traumatic news, and that’s something I’ve observed over and over again: “No, no, no, no, no.” I’ve said it a few times in such situations myself.
This is a common – and normal – human response to trauma. It isn’t inherently wrong or bad. In fact, it is motivated by love – a love for life and a love for others. Of course we don’t want to be sick! Of course we don’t want our loved ones to suffer! Of course we don’t want to lose them! And so, we say, “No!”
This response does, however, have a spiritual dimension to it which we should give some thought to today. When we say “no, no, no, no” to suffering, sometimes part of what we’re saying is that God isn’t doing things the way we want him to. Sometimes part of what we’re saying is, “No, God, we don’t accept this. This isn’t right. You aren’t doing this whole God thing correctly.” Sometimes that completely normal human response, rooted as it is in love, becomes an occasion for us to put ourselves in the position of God, deciding for ourselves how things should go. We only accept that God is good and loving and in control when things start going our way again, the way we think they should go.
Jesus told the disciples that he was going to suffer. He told them he was going to suffer, and be rejected, and be killed. This was traumatic news. Things had been going so well. Jesus had been going around healing people. He was becoming popular, gaining quite a following. Earlier in this very chapter Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people with fish and bread. In the verses just before our reading Peter had correctly identified Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the long-promised Savior. From the disciples’ perspective, everything was going great. Everything was going as they thought it should.
But then came this traumatic news. Jesus told them he was going to suffer and be rejected and be killed. And Peter’s response was, “No!” St. Mark tells us Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked him. From the other gospel accounts we know that Peter literally said, “No! No, Lord, this must not happen to you!”
We heard what happened next. Jesus then rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
It was normal, it was human, for Peter to want to spare Jesus from suffering and death. Peter loved Jesus! But Peter’s response to this traumatic news assumed that he knew better than Jesus did. It assumed that he knew better than the Messiah did about how to be a Messiah. It assumed that he knew more than the Savior did about how to save.
“Get behind me Satan!” Jesus said to him. This is not to suggest that Peter had suddenly turned evil. It meant he had been deceived. He had been deceived into thinking he knew better than God. Jesus saw the tempter at work, tempting him to think he knew a better way for the Messiah to carry out his saving work. The deceiver was doing what the deceiver is always trying to do. He was trying to direct Peter, and Jesus, away from the cross.
Next Jesus turned to the crowd as said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 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.”
What does it mean to deny ourselves? What does it mean to take up our crosses? What does it mean to lose our lives in order to save them?
With these words coming as they are in the midst of Lent, we might be tempted to think that denying ourselves means giving up ice cream or candy for five more weeks. We might think it is a project of self-discipline we need to take on in order to get our act together to prove ourselves as disciples. We might think that taking up our crosses means heroically pursuing a life of hardship and suffering, again, as a way of proving ourselves as disciples. We might think that losing our lives for Jesus’ sake means seeking a glorious martyrdom, either figuratively or literally.
But none of this makes sense in light of the context in which Jesus spoke these words. Jesus is addressing Peter’s “no” here. He is addressing what he has come to do. He is talking about how he as the Savior was coming to save. Jesus was going to accomplish his saving work by himself undergoing great suffering, being rejected and killed, and after three days being raised again. What Jesus is inviting the crowd to do is simply to believe it! He is inviting them to trust that what he is going to do will save them.
To deny yourself in this context is to set aside the human way of thinking, the normal “no” reflex, and trust that this is how the Savior will save. To take up your own cross in this context is to give your life over entirely to God, to entrust yourself to God completely, even in the midst of suffering. To lose your life for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the gospel is to die to yourself, to die to your need for control. It is to surrender your life to the reality that God has saved you through the death and resurrection of his Son.
I’d like to illustrate this with some words by the great American theologian, Carrie Underwood. In her 2005 theological treatise entitled “Jesus Take the Wheel,” (which also happens to be a country song) she describes a woman who is desperate. She’s in a life-threatening situation. She’s a single mom on her way home to see her parents in Cincinnati. She is described as running low on both faith and gasoline. It had been a long, hard year for this woman, Underwood writes, and now, with 50 miles left to go and with her baby in the back seat, she hits a patch of black ice. Both of their lives flash before her eyes and she cries out, “Jesus take the wheel/Take it from my hands/’Cause I can’t do this on my own/I’m letting go.”
The second verse of this treatise, er, song, reveals that she and her baby are okay, thank goodness, but what makes song so powerful is the chorus. What makes it so powerful is the surrender. She hands her life over. “Jesus take the wheel! Take it from my hands! I can’t do this on my own! I’m letting go!” She entrusts herself and her loved one entirely to Christ.
She wasn’t giving up, she was surrendering her life to Jesus. There’s a difference. Christianity is not a death cult. We do not glorify death or seek it, thinking we are pleasing God as we do so, like some extreme forms of religion do. Neither do we see it as some benign part of “the circle of life” that we must accept as part of nature. Scripture describes death as an enemy. As such, we should fight it. We should guard against it. And when it seems to win, we rightly say “no!” We rightly grieve it. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope. Nor do we suffer as those who have no Savior.
God’s ways confuse and confound us at times. God doesn’t always do things the way we would like. God’s ways are often hidden from us. Sometimes they don’t make sense from a human point of view.
But God has heard our “no.” God has heard our cries. And God has responded to them by coming to us through his Son. God has responded to them by entering into our suffering through the cross of Christ, who suffered, and was rejected, and was killed. In Jesus, God stretched his arms out over all the suffering of the world, taking it all upon himself, until he bowed his head in death.
But Jesus’ story didn’t end with suffering and death. On the third day he was raised, just as he said. He ultimately conquered death through his resurrection. He has defeated that enemy, and he promises to share that victory with us. And so suffering and death won’t be the end of your story either.
In the meantime, surrender your life to Jesus. Deny yourself, setting your mind on divine things and not only on human things. Take up your cross and follow Jesus to the future he has in store for you. Entrust your life, and your death, to Christ and his gospel. Let him take the wheel. He’ll get you where you need to be.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church