2nd
Sunday in Lent at Epiphany on
Mark
The
Biggest Loser
We are entering “March Madness.” High school
basketball tournaments, hockey tournaments and the granddaddy of them all – the
NCAA tournaments. You can be sure that none of the coaches for any of those
teams will use Jesus’ words from our Gospel as a pep talk. None of them will
say, “The real winners are losers!” No coach will say, “The real losers are the
ones who look like winners!” That would be madness. We want to see ourselves as
winners not losers.
Along comes Jesus – definitely a winner when it
comes to kicking around demons and diseases. He turns to His disciples and says,
“Guess what? I’m about to become the biggest loser the religious world has ever
seen. I’m going to suffer at the hands of the religious, the people who should
have welcomed me with open arms – the elders, the chief priests, the teachers of
Torah. I’m going to be rejected and killed. And in three days, I’m going to rise
again. And you know what else? If you’re going to join me in this losing
venture, you’re going to become a loser just like me!”
Jesus said it boldly, plainly, straight-up. No
parables, no off-center questions, no poetic phrases loaded with double
meanings. And He said it by way of necessity. This wasn’t an option, one
possible road among several. He must suffer, die and rise. It was necessary for
these things to happen.
This didn’t sit well with Peter. Peter had just
made the “great confession” – “you are the Christ” – but as with most things,
Peter didn’t fully understand what that little word “Christ” meant. “Christ” to
Peter meant messianic muscle, power, glory, dominion, demon-busting,
disease-curing, leper-cleansing, hypocrite-rebuking dynamite. The fun stuff.
That’s what Peter had in mind when he said “Christ.”
It’s curious, and I believe intentional, that the
episode just prior to this is Jesus’ healing of a blind man at
The Holy Spirit through Mark may be setting us up
to see the disciples in terms of this blind man after the first part of his
healing – “the spit part”. Seeing, but not clearly. Seeing, but not enough to be
useful. Peter “sees” who Jesus is – the Christ, the Messiah - but he doesn’t
“see” that he comprehends what that means. You won’t clearly see Jesus as the
Christ until you see Him hanging dead on a cross and risen from the dead. Until
then, its spiritual nearsightedness. Jesus may as well be a walking tree.
Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes Him. “No,
that’s not the program. Enough of this loser talk. We didn’t leave the fishing
business for this. Suffering and dying aren’t part of the kingdom-building
agenda.”
That wasn’t Peter talking. That was the
diabolical voice last heard in the wilderness, tempting Jesus not to be the
suffering Son of God. Now he tempts Jesus through one of His own. “Get behind
me, Satan. You do not have in mind God things but man things.”
A cross-less Christ. That’s what the devil wants.
No suffering servant stuff. No bloody sacrifice. No vicarious atonement. Power,
glory, fame, celebrity. That’s the satanic way. It’s also man’s way. Our way.
The way of the winners. Not the cross. Crosses are shameful. Losers hang on
crosses. Resurrections are cool, but there’s a catch – you have to die first. No
Easter without Good Friday, not matter how hard some Christians try to have it
that way.
A cross-less church. The devil couldn’t be
happier. I don’t mean a church without a cross or a crucifix, though the absence
does make you wonder a bit. I mean a church that goes on as if Jesus hadn’t
suffered for the sins of the world. That’s what I mean by a “cross-less church.”
A cross-less church focuses on prosperity, peace,
programs designed to fire us up so we can be winners, transform society, and
improve self-image. There are plenty of churches and plenty more Christians who
would be happy to get rid of the bloody images of Jesus hanging on the cross and
replace them with pictures of pretty flowers and smiling children and successful
business people so we can all “feel good about ourselves.” That’s not Christ’s
church. That’s the devil’s church.
A pastor wrote to an online study group: “I’m
having difficulty with the Gospel this week; what is this cross that I am to
take up, and what am I to deny in following Jesus?” Another pastor wrote: “I
find this a hard gospel text because it talks about suffering rather than joy.”
Whether it is pastors in the pulpit or the people in the pew, the cross has
always caused problems for people. The cross separates Christianity from all
other religions. God-in-the-flesh hung on a shameful instrument of torture to
give His life for a world that didn’t ask to be saved. The cross of Christ is
offensive. The crucifix makes even Christians uncomfortable.
Do not romanticize the cross. The cross is not
sneezes and sniffles, the inconveniences and ingrown toenails, the diseases and
depressions of life, though they are part of it. The cross is suffering. The
cross is death. It is death to sin. It is self-denial, losing one’s life, being
able to turn one’s back on an “adulterous and sinful generation.” The cross is
hard. The cross is rough. The cross is rugged.
Christianity isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s
supposed to be difficult. Jesus gave up His glory to suffer. He died – for you.
He asks the same of you – for Him.
This is difficult to say, but it is true. If you
want to be a real disciple of Christ quit your whining. Stop holding onto your
treasures. Let go of your pleasures. Worship isn’t supposed to be convenient.
Giving offerings isn’t supposed to be inexpensive. Living the committed,
continuous life of the Christian isn’t supposed to be effortless. If that’s what
you want, then you are following the wrong Savior. You are lukewarm. Jesus will
spit you out of His mouth.
That’s the big reason why the church is in the
shape she is in. She is rich yet poor, fat, complacent, comfortable, like the
lukewarm church in Laodicia in Revelation. It is a sad when the pastor has to
remind members to come to church. It is distressing that letters have to be
written asking for increased offerings and commitment. There is a definite
spiritual problem when the pastor has to beg you to come to Bible class or send
your kids to Sunday School.
Look where there is vigorous and vital
Christianity emerging today. It is precisely where Christians suffer for their
confession – in
And we ask why our church doesn’t grow? Are we
willing to suffer enough for God to allow our church to grow?
We are living in difficult times right now.
People are losing their jobs. Loved ones are dying. Health is deteriorating.
Businesses, families, even churches are struggling financially. But this is
great news! God can use this economy to humble us. He can use our struggles to
drive us to our knees. He can use the rough times to force us to look to Him for
help. We are reminded that the cross before the glory. The pain before the
pleasure. The valley of death before the green pastures and quiet waters. The
cup of suffering before the banquet feast of the Lamb.
A cross-less church cannot bear suffering. It can
barely suffer an ingrown toenail. Did you hear the apostle Paul this morning? We
rejoice in our sufferings! Huh? What kind of people rejoice in suffering? We
have pills for that. What sort of people embrace suffering as a way of growth
and life? Cross-centered people do. People who have been baptized into the death
of Jesus and who have been called to follow Him through death to life.
Suffering makes sense only in Jesus, only in His
death and resurrection. Take away the cross and suffering is a puzzle, a
mystery, a glitch in the “intelligent design” of the universe. Why does an
all-powerful, loving God permit suffering? You don’t ask those sorts of
questions at the foot of the cross. Instead you thank God for the privilege of
being chosen to suffer, trusting that you are justified, trusting that you have
peace with God in Christ, knowing that your suffering is producing perseverance,
character, and hope and there’s no other way to produce perseverance, character,
and hope except through suffering.
“If anyone would follow after me, he must deny
himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” The cross is the way of Jesus the
Christ, and of all who follow Him. There’s no other way. The cross is the narrow
door that many seek but few find and our sinful selves want nothing to do with.
Who wants to be a loser when you can be a winner?
Deny yourself. People, we’re not talking about
giving up chocolate or coffee for Lent. We’re talking dying to your self,
denying that inner brat who wants everything his or her way 24/7. Dying to sin
and self. That kind of denial.
Take up your cross. This is not some piece of
self-chosen suffering, as though you could go to the cross catalog and pick one
that matches your Sunday outfit. “Here’s a pretty one. This will be my cross.”
Crosses are laid on you, and you are nailed to them. Crosses don’t inconvenience
you or hurt you a little bit like a hang nail or a sprained ankle. Crosses kill.
Your cross is your death. You can’t choose your
death (except for suicide, I suppose). Your death is something given you. Jesus
speaks plainly. To save our lives we must lose them in Jesus. To live we must
die, not just once, but daily in our Baptisms.
To rise with the winners we must take our place
on the cross with the biggest Loser of them all, the One who lost His life to
save you, the One who denied Himself to embrace you, the One who exchanged His
perfect life for your miserable death, the One who was not ashamed to bear your
shame in nakedness, to become your sin in His own sinless flesh so that in Him
you might become the righteousness of God and be justified and have peace with
God.
A long time ago, two young brothers were caught
stealing sheep. The punishment back then was to brand the thief's forehead with
the letters “ST” which stood for sheep thief. As a result of this, one brother
left the village and spent his remaining years wandering from place to place
indelibly marked by disgrace. The other remained in the village, made
restitution for the stolen sheep, and became a caring friend and neighbor to the
townspeople. He lived out his life in the village, an old man loved by all. One
day a stranger came to town and inquired about the ST on the old man's forehead.
“I'm not sure what it means,” someone told him. “It happened so long ago, but I
think the letters must stand for saint.”
What are we going to do? We can lay down our
cross and passively live life with no challenge to change or we can take it up
and be transformed, living for something greater than ourselves – the