Remember the Cross

Mark 8:31-38

Lent 2, Year B

March 12, 2006

INTRO

I feel sorry for Simon Peter, sometimes. I have sympathy for him for this reason. Simon Peter had the misfortune of having his dumbest statements, his worst mistakes remembered and recorded for all the world to hear. The question seemed pretty straightforward: of the following two scenarios, which reflects “the things of God” and which reflects “the things of man?”

Scenario number one: Continual, miraculous displays of power.

Scenario number two: Suffering, rejection, and death on a cross.

Quickly, no time for delay. Give an answer!

Jesus says suffering, rejection, and death on a cross are on the horizon of this one who has lived His life in perfect obedience to the will of God. Peter said there’s no way suffering, rejection, and death on a cross could remotely reflect “the things of God” for such a man. Peter rebukes Jesus. Jesus rebukes Peter. And then Jesus “ups the ante.” “Not only is a cross in my future,” He says, “but it’s in your future too, if you want to follow after me.” Peter had the misfortune of being the one whose most glaring wrong answer was recorded, and remembered through the ages.

I. It’s not hard to understand why Peter got the answer so wrong. After all, if you’ve been listening to Mark’s Gospel from the beginning up to this point, Mark has emphasized power. Mark has dazzled us with a narrative that highlights the power of Jesus. Christ has gone head to head, toe to toe with Satan, and emerged victorious. We’ve heard of a Christ who:

Overcomes Satan’s wilderness temptations
Casts out demons
Heals a leper
Heals a paralytic
Calms a storm
Heals a man who has been tormented by demons for years
Raises a girl from the dead
Heals a woman who has been sick for twelve years
Feeds 5,000 people
Walks on the water
Heals a man who is deaf and mute
Feeds 4,000 more people
Heals the blind man at the pool at Bethsaida

For eight chapters, the refrain is: power, power, power. Power over Satan, power over sickness, power over death. Power!

If folks know that when they’re hungry they’ll be fed, that if they get sick they’ll be healed, and that if they die they’ll come back to life—if you can show folks all of that—you’ll get quite a following. And Jesus did have quite a following. The power was real. The healings were real. This was no smoke and mirrors show.

But all of a sudden, the focus changes. How was Peter to know? How was anyone to know that the forecast was not going to be power today, increasing power tomorrow, with an extended period of power over the weekend?

Just as the emphasis on life and power reaches a crescendo, there is a dramatic shift. The end of the eighth chapter of Mark is the hinge of the Gospel. This is the place where the Cross begins to come into focus. For eight chapters we see Jesus doing His ministry: casting out demons, healing lepers, feeding the hungry. In short, we see Jesus bringing new life.

Proclaiming life, delivering life, celebrating life! But then comes Jesus’ announcement of His suffering, rejection, and death. And from that moment on, life is lived in the shadow of the Cross.

I think Jesus understood what a difficult transition this would be for the disciples: from a focus on life and power to a focus on death and the Cross. So not just once, but three times in fairly quick succession, Jesus predicts His death [8:31, 9:31, 10:33]. And suddenly, Jesus’ life-giving ministry begins to speak of death and dying and bearing crosses. The contrast is incredibly vivid for those who in His presence, vivid and jarring.

And, in case words were not enough, to these three predictions of His death were added some vivid life experiences that couldn’t help but sear the image on the minds of those who lived through them. As I hear the Gospel accounts, I am struck by the way the reminders of the Cross were woven into the natural fabric of their lives. The Gospel writers give us incident after incident of lives touched by the Cross, and touched in such a way that they could never forget its impact. I draw your attention to three scenes from the Gospels.

II. There is the story of the religious authorities. They were fixin’ to celebrate the Passover. Do you remember the story of the feast of the Passover? The great annual feast where they celebrate God delivering them from Egypt. Every Jewish family gathers in the spring to thank God for sparing their firstborn sons when the angel of death took the lives of all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians.

It was kind of inconvenient for the religious authorities, trying to arrange an execution during the feast of the Passover. For to enter Pilate’s palace—the palace of a Gentile—would make them ceremonially unclean. If they went in, they couldn’t celebrate the Passover. So John says [18:28-29] the religious authorities stayed outside Pilate’s palace and Pilate came out to take care of business.

Can you see the awful irony of that? Religious leaders trying to arrange an execution without spoiling their holiday plans and their worship time! It is so distasteful to hear the story of them plotting the death of God’s firstborn son—His only begotten Son—in a way that wouldn’t interfere with their celebration of the Passover, when God spared the lives of their firstborn sons.
That seems so distant from us, except for places where Christians busy themselves with keeping their own rules while they go about destroying the spirit of God’s law.

A while back I heard a story from a church in the deep South. Every Sunday morning they gathered to give God thanks for the grace that accomplished their salvation. Every Sunday morning they prayed that God would help them be a witness of holiness in their community. But when one of their board members got word that the pastor had witnessed to an African-American couple, and invited them to worship the next Sunday . . . Well, the board member pulled the pastor aside and said:

Don’t expect me to be back if you invite them. If they show up in this church you might just as well write ICHABOD above the door—God’s Spirit has departed from this place.

I heard that story and thought, “Oh no, you don’t need to worry about writing ‘Ichabod’ above the door. It has already been written.”

None of the folks in that church were planning an execution on their way to church the next Sunday. It wasn’t that direct. But when you assassinate the purposes of God one day, and show up to hand out bulletins and help take the offering the next day, you might just as well crucify Christ again. Week after week Christ is crucified all over again by sincere religious folks who assassinate the purposes of God and still manage to make it to worship on time without a drop of blood on them.

III. Well, the second scene is from the lives of James and John. Both Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels follow the story of Christ predicting His death with the story of James and John jockeying for position in the Kingdom. Matthew says their mom comes to ask Jesus the question. Mark says James and John ask for themselves. Either way, the point is the same. Christ has just told His disciples He will be betrayed and crucified, and in what should be a solemn moment, these two have the audacity to pull Jesus aside and say, “Can we ask you just one tiny favor? Could you save us a special spot in your kingdom, so one of us could have a place at your right hand, and the other could have a place at your left hand?”

Imagine their surprise when they witness Christ’s execution. Standing at the foot of Calvary, they see not two or four or five crosses. There are exactly three. And Christ’s place in the line is not at either end, but precisely in the middle. And these two ambitious, upwardly mobile disciples see with their own eyes that the place at the right hand of Christ is occupied by a cross. And the place at the left hand of Christ is occupied by a cross.

How often do you think they thought about the Cross? Maybe not too often, unless someone asks for directions: Well, when you come into Jerusalem, on your right hand side you’ll see a couple of houses together, and just a little further, on the left hand side, you’ll find the market. And they remembered.

Oh, they didn’t think about it much until dinnertime came, and their kids hollered, “Dad, does the fork or the spoon go on the right?”

“The spoon goes on the right-hand side, and the fork goes on the left-hand side.”

And I wonder if a day went by the rest of their lives that they didn’t think of the Cross?

IV. The third scene is from the life of Simon Peter himself. His story is much more familiar to us. Christ had given him the nickname of Rock, and the name seemed to stick. Now, “a rock isn’t the prettiest thing in creation or the fanciest or the smartest, and if it gets rolling in the wrong direction, watch out, but there’s no nonsense about a rock, and once it settles down, it’s pretty much there to stay.”

And Peter had his high points, like when they were talking about who Jesus was, and who He wasn’t, and Jesus put the question directly to the twelve: Who do YOU say that I am? The silence was deafening until Peter broke it by saying, “You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said, “You’re exactly right, and that confession is the kind of rock I’ll build my kingdom on, Peter, and the gates of Hell itself won’t prevail against it.”

Then there was the day the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, and Peter decided to try to walk on it himself and meet Jesus. Well, he took a few steps before he started to sink like . . . well, like a rock . . . until Jesus rescued him.

But I wonder if there is any scene in Peter’s life he would ever remember more than the scene in the courtyard. Over and over he had declared, “Jesus, I’ll never leave you. I’ll die for you if I have to.” (He had it all backwards, and didn’t understand that Christ would die for him.) And when Christ predicted Peter’s three denials, Peter protested, “Never me, Lord.” But in the courtyard after he had just uttered his third denial, he heard the rooster crow and “the tears began to run down his face like rain down a rock.”

How often do you think Peter remembered those denials, and thought of the Cross? How often? Maybe not too often, except for those mornings when he was awakened by the crowing of a rooster. Which was just about every morning for the rest of his life. Peter had no trouble remembering the Cross.

The religious authorities: could they ever worship again, could they ever celebrate the Passover again without remembering the Cross?

James and John: could they ever think about the “right-hand side” and the “left-hand side” again without remembering the Cross?

Peter: could he ever hear a rooster crow again without remembering the Cross?

For these folks, their encounter with the Cross was woven into the very fabric of their everyday lives. Their intersection with the Cross came in the midst of activities so ordinary, so frequently repeated that they had no trouble remembering the encounter where their mindset of “power” was challenged by the mindset of the Cross. They would forever remember the Cross.

V. So how have we done in moving from a focus on power to a focus on the Cross? I read a Christian writer recently who was lamenting the failure of Christians to “turn the corner” the way Mark’s Gospel turns the corner:

“Jesus today has many who love his heavenly kingdom,” he wrote, “but few who carry his cross; many who yearn for comfort, few who long for distress. Plenty of people he finds to share his banquet, few to share his fast. Everyone desires to take part in his rejoicing, but few are willing to suffer anything for his sake. There are many that follow Jesus as far as the breaking of bread, few as far as drinking the cup of suffering; many that revere his miracles, few that follow him in the indignity of the cross.”

That’s a sad indictment of Christianity. But I found some comfort in knowing those words were written more than 500 years ago, by Thomas à Kempis. Surely the Church has gotten better over the years. Surely we’re better at living out the words of Jesus. Surely we’ve learned that following Jesus means bearing a cross.

So I flipped through another book by a recent Christian author. His book is on the New York Times’ best seller list. I opened it and discovered these three opening examples:

1) A man was vacationing with his wife in Hawaii. On a tour of the island, he was impressed by a beautiful beachfront home. His first thought was that he could never imagine owning such a beautiful home. Then he chided himself. Of course he would never own such a home if he couldn’t imagine it! He needed to straighten out his thinking. In his own words, he realized “his own thoughts and attitudes were condemning him to mediocrity.”

2) A young woman who struggled with being unable to place any higher than first runner-up in two consecutive Miss Florida pageants. Discouraged, but not defeated, she moved to Kansas the following year, and spent countless hours watching video tapes of previous pageant winners. She went on to win Miss Kansas, and was ultimately crowned Miss America. She attributes her victory to her faith in God, and the fact that every time she watched a video of a pageant, “she pictured herself receiving the crown.”

3) The author himself was walking in his neighborhood where he had just purchased his first home. He and his wife stepped inside a home still under construction, the nicest home in the neighborhood. The thought of owning a home that nice didn’t even enter his mind, until his wife cheerfully announced, “One day we’re going to live in a beautiful home just like that.”

The author rounds out the opening chapter with the insight that, “With God on your side, you cannot possibly lose.”
I read that and I wondered, “Did Jesus really come so His disciples could ‘win’ the best vacation homes, beauty pageants, and the parade of homes prize?” Is that the “best life” that Jesus came to give us? Is that what He suffered, was rejected, and died for? That Christian author answers a resounding, “YES.” But before I closed the book, I thought I heard a voice saying, “Get behind me, Satan. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.”

I guess that’s why I’m a little sympathetic to Peter. Well-meaning disciples today keep believing, like Peter did, that God’s plan must be power and glory for all His children. Surely He wouldn’t want His children to endure suffering, rejection, and death on a cross. Would He?

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34b-35).

CONCLUSION

The season of Lent reminds us every year of those words. The message of this season is: Remember the Cross.

Now, just by counting the number of crosses we see, you’d think we could never forget Christ’s death and His call for us to take up our cross. We’ve got crosses on our pulpits, on the walls of our churches, on our steeples, on church signs. Crosses on our stationery, imprinted on our checks, hanging from our ears, strung around our necks, embossed on our bibles. But you know what happens over time. The Cross becomes so familiar to us that we hardly notice it’s there. We kind of take it for granted. But we are called to remember the Cross. That, in part, is what the season of Lent helps us to do. So the next time you see a cross, remember the Cross!