Scripture: Mark 8:27-38; James 3:1-5; Philippians 4:8; Luke 12:16-21 Series: After Pentecost
Preaching on Mark 8:27-38, the sermon recovers the shocking meaning of ‘take up your cross’ by likening the cross to carrying one’s own electric chair to execution. It traces Jesus’ question at Caesarea Philippi, Peter’s confession and rebuke, the messianic secret in Mark, and Jesus’ fusion of the Messiah and Son of Man prophecies. Self-denial means killing the desires and false sources of self-definition (work, family, sports, politics) that cannot save us, and a critique of ‘lifeboat evangelism’ that focuses only on saving oneself. Drawing on Andrew of Crete, U2, the rich fool, and Philippians 4:8, the call is to find life by laying it down and following the God who is love.
Illustrations: electric-chair-cross, andrew-of-crete-cross, yall-versus-yinz, rich-man-storage-units, u2-still-havent-found, longhorns-cowboys-meaning
September 15
Take up your cross
James 3:1-5
Mark 8:27-38
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will face stricter judgment. For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is mature, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a such a small fire!
- James 3:1-5
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
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 said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 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.”
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. 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 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.”
- Mark 8:27-38
The cross meant something very different in the time of Jesus than it does today. State executions don’t usually use electric shares anymore, but I think an electric chair is the best modern example of the cross. It is an instrument purely of death. But imagine if you had to carry your own electric chair to your own execution if you’re condemned to death. You have to carry the electric chair from one side of the prison to the other while everybody is watching. The town comes out, not only to see you die, but to see you carry that chair. It doesn’t matter how physically weak you are in the moment, you have to carry that chair.
For Jesus to say these words, take up your cross, means, at its heart, to take up the instrument of your own death. And not just a natural death, to take up the instrument of your own execution. These are striking words in so many ways in the modern world. We have evacuated the cross of its terrible meaning and so the power of the cross within our imagination has been diminished. As an old preacher, Andrew of Crete, once said,
Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified. Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree. And if life had not been nailed to it, there would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ’s side, blood and water for the world’s cleansing. The legal bond of our sin would not be cancelled, we should not have attained our freedom, we should not have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life and the gates of paradise would not stand open. Had there been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled.1
The power of the cross of Jesus Christ is constant. The variable is found in how we understand it and seek it. We are the ones who turn it into kitsch and hollow it out, but the power is still there.
Before we get to Jesus’s claims about the cross, we need to see where he starts. Jesus does a lot in a short amount of time, here in Mark 8. At first, he asks his students, who do people say that I am? And the students give some examples. I like to translate mathates as student instead of disciple. Disciple comes from the Latin translation of the Greek, and it also means student. Like a good teacher, Jesus asks his students a question and they give him an answer. And then he hones the question down, who do you all say that I am? Who do y’all say that I am in Texas? Who do yinz say that I am? If you live in the Pittsburgh area.
Peter responds, you are the anointed one. You are the Christos. You are the Messiah. There is no reward for Peter in Mark as there is in Matthew. Instead, Jesus asks them not tell anyone. It is a curious thing in Mark that Jesus, over and over again, asks his disciples not to share about him. The Jesus in the gospel of Mark is not a very good evangelist. He is constantly trying to tamper down the message. I think a major part has to do with Jesus’s understanding that his life doesn’t make sense until after the resurrection. And so his goal in the ministry of his lifetime is not to reach as many people as possible, but to prepare people for the new world to come after his resurrection. The life Jesus lives only makes sense after the resurrection. Jesus is not a utilitarian, he is not trying to to save the most people in the most efficient way possible. That is not what he is seeking in the gospel of Mark. He’s not trying to gather as many followers as possible. It is all purposeful. Peter gives the right answer, but Jesus doesn’t want the whole world to know yet.
Soon, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue talking about the son of man, who is a figure alluded to in the book of Daniel and Ezekiel.
So Jesus is talking about these passages from the prophets and trying to explain what they mean.
Jesus isn’t equating the Messiah, being anointed, with the son of man, he is talking about a different prophecy. The Messianic prophecies happen, especially in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah, the son of man is a different prophecy. But Jesus fuses these two in himself and he’s not ashamed to teach about the tribulations of the son of man. One of the unique things about Jesus here is that he merges these two prophecies, the messiah and the son of man, into one. All our hope is realized in God become flesh in Jesus.
Peter hears Jesus’s words in the midst of these others in the synagogue and rebukes Jesus. He rejects Jesus. Jesus said that the son of man is going to be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the writers, the scribes. And then Peter rejects Jesus through his rebuke. Peter has good reason to, he doesn’t want his rabbi, his teacher to suffer, but Jesus in turn says, get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. Peter is thinking about the human consequences of Jesus’s words and not the divine ones. Not the divine meaning or import. And so he’s acting like the accuser there. Like Satan. Peter has a wicked spirit and Jesus calls him out on this. This is the point when Jesus makes his radical claim. He calls the people around him. He’s in the synagogue, so he calls people around him again and speaks in a different tone.
If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross. Let them deny themselves and take up the instrument of their own destruction. Pick it up and then follow me. And here we have an explanation of what this means.
For those who want to save their life will lose it. Those who lose their life for my sake will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and yet lose their Soul? What do you get?
Those who are seeking to save their life will lose their life. Those who are seeking to save their soul will will lose their soul and those who lose their soul for my sake and for the sake of the good news, will save it.
Evangelism Critique
I think there’s an implicit critique here for a lot of the ways evangelism has taken place over the last 2000 years and now people have shared about the church. What I would term lifeboat evangelism. Lifeboat evangelism is trying to convince people to become Christians by focusing exclusively on saving themselves or out of a concern for saving themselves. The great example is the question: Where will you go if you die? Jesus has words here about that question. God offers us life everlasting, a dwelling place with many rooms. But our life to come is centered on God, not our own skin. If you are trying to save your life and save your soul, you will lose it. This works beyond evangelism, beyond the faith. If you are trying to save yourself with other things, with your job, with your family, with the longhorns, with the cowboys, with politics, and by save here, we could also say give meaning, if you are trying to give meaning to your life through these external things, you will lose it. If you’re trying to give meaning to your soul, it’s not going to work. It will fall short.
Denying ourself means letting go of these tools of self definition that destroy us, that can’t save us. They can feel good and they can feel like purpose and they can feel like peace, but it is a false peace.
Parable of the Rich Man
Like the parable of the rich man who had so many things that he needed to build more storehouses for his things. He didn’t have enough space to put away all his stuff, so he bought a storage unit and then another storage unit and then another storage unit, and then he said, Soul, you’ve done well. But then that very night his life was taken from him and all of those things did nothing.
Denying ourselves and taking up the cross is not simply about wearing a cross or about being unselfish. It is about killing those desires that keep us from love. It is about looking at your life and realizing what you don’t need.
There is an old U2 song that can help here.
I have climbed highest mountains I have run through the fields Only to be with you Only to be with you I have run I have crawled I have scaled these city walls These city walls Only to be with you But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
We will keep looking until we find Jesus. When we find Jesus, we will find what we were looking for. Jesus is sufficient
If Jesus is the word of God made flesh. If God is love and in him there is no darkness at all, and so Jesus is love embodied. Jesus is all love with no remainder. He also shows that our bodies are capable of love without remainder.
All good things in this life, all truly good, positive experiences are good in the way that they reflect Jesus.
All of that heady theology for this one point: when Jesus asks the people in the synagogue to take up their cross and follow him, he is saying that he is enough and that you are enough. The cross is an instrument of death to the world, a terrible death. The only way to pick it up willingly is by faith. To give yourself away you truly find yourself because to give yourself away you find Jesus, the Lord, the giver of life.
By realizing that Jesus is the one whom we are looking for, it is not to discount other interests, but that Jesus is the answer to Paul’s request in Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Jesus has already said yes to you and nothing can separate you from him. We are called to be his students. To learn from him. And one of the biggest lessons is letting go of what we don’t need. This makes us see something beautiful in the cross because the death it marks is no longer to be feared. As Andrew of Crete wrote,
Therefore, the cross is something wonderfully great and honorable. It is great because through the cross the many noble acts of Christ found their consummation—very many indeed, for both his miracles and his sufferings were fully rewarded with victory. The cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God’s suffering and the trophy of his victory. It stands for his suffering because on it he freely suffered unto death. But it is also his trophy because it was the means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered; the barred gates of hell were smashed, and the cross became the one common salvation of the whole world.2
So take up your cross. Take up your electric chair. It may be an instrument of death to the world but it is nothing next to the power of God. Take it up. You don’t need to protect your things. You are offered what really matters and it doesn’t need to protecting. The more you hoard, the less you have. The more you give, the more you receive. Find your life by laying it down,
And follow the God who is love by loving, by serving, by praying, by giving.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.