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The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost
O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 19)
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The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Mark 8:27-38; Isaiah 50:5b-6a
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Mark 8:27-38; Isaiah 50:5b-6a
✛
Let Us Not Fear the Cross
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I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. Isaiah 50:5b-6a
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Today Jesus asks his disciples to state who they believe he is. This scene is the centerpiece of the entire Gospel of Saint Mark. It focuses on Jesus and Peter. Peter first confesses Jesus to be the Christ. But then Jesus rebukes Peter for denying that it was necessary for Jesus, the Son of man, to suffer and be killed by the authorities.
This exchange between Christ and Peter sets forth the whole point of Mark’s Gospel: Who do we (after Peter) believe Jesus to be? If we, like Peter, believe Jesus to be the Christ, then are we prepared to follow Jesus on his way to his cross? Peter, having been rebuked by Jesus, then professed his loyalty later on. When the time came for Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial and crucifixion, Peter asserted he would never desert the Lord. This was the eve of Good Friday at the Last Supper. But Jesus saw through this and said that before morning cockcrow, Peter would deny him three times; which was what happened.
Peter’s loyalty to Jesus had been exposed not to include the cross. Why, is a good question. Was it fear? Yes, probably, in a number of ways. Fear of the same thing happening to Peter. Fear of associating with such an ignominious fate in one’s leader. Fear of that leader, by dying as he did, being all wrong. Fear of being the fool for following. These are fears that we can identify with; they seem quite reasonable. The cross is an offense.
After Jesus’ death, after the discovery of his empty tomb, after his resurrection appearances, Peter, who was among the first witnesses, underwent rehabilitation. Peter’s rehabilitation is ours and constitutes his and our embrace of the Gospel. Saint Mark the Evangelist had his own issues with the same kind of fear. He may well have been the unnamed young man who fled the scene of Christ’s arrest, stripped and naked, running off into the night – an incident that Mark alone records. Overcoming that fear means coming to believe the heart of the Gospel, the Good News. In today’s episode, Jesus helps out his disciples and even the multitude at large, points them towards faith, with some godly wisdom. This is the kind of wisdom that Saint Paul called the foolishness of God which is wiser than men.
First of all, what is it that we are afraid of? Losing our lives? Yes, certainly. Peter didn’t want Jesus to be executed (crucified) and didn’t want to be killed that way himself. Who in his right mind does? Anyone who does wish it needs his head examined. But wait: Jesus didn’t wish it at all. Far from it, he prayed his greatest prayer against it. He simply foresaw it as the necessary outcome of his life’s work, and he didn’t want his followers to be under any illusions. Jesus was being sober and clear-eyed about the consequences of his life. And as for us, none of us is going to get out of this world alive; it is only a matter of time before we die. If we sell our souls to buy time, what do we have? What does it profit to gain the whole world and to lose one’s soul, one’s integrity, one’s true identity, one’s meaning and purpose? But if you give your life, if you “lose” it to that meaning and purpose, then you have truly found it. Who are the people who inspire? Are they the time-servers, the man-pleasers, the hirelings, the people who are for sale? Or are they the self-givers, the sacrificial lovers, the witnesses to truth; aren’t these the men (and women) for all seasons?
Jesus was certainly the true Son of man, the self-giver, the sacrificial lover, the witness to truth for all time. What did he mean when he said that if we are to come after him, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him? He meant to give up our fear, that fear which clings so closely in our instinct for self-preservation, which prevents us from venturing to give, to love, to be true. That fear – of death – is what we are called to deny; that deep-seated resistance to growing up into the full stature of God-given human life, that childishness (not childlikeness) that puts the self at the center of things.
Crucifixion has disappeared as a death penalty. So what is this cross we must take up, once we have denied our fear, in order to follow Jesus, the true Son of man? Pondering this question, Saint Augustine wrote, “What else does the cross mean than the mortality of this flesh?”¹ We are called to shoulder the weight of our mortal life, our life in the body, in this time and this place, with all its trials and temptations. We are called to live it, to face it as Jesus faced his, and to know that is in fact the way of life and peace here and now, and the way into the kingdom of heaven and its glory. It is a choice about how to live the life we are given. We can choose to follow Christ. In so doing, we are comforted by the knowledge that even as we lose our life we have found it.
Here is an example. Early in my ministry I visited a woman dying of cancer. She was going to pre-decease her mother, which was especially hard. We may not get out of this world alive, but this timing was bad news. As the cancer advanced and her body weakened, it seemed her spirit shone forth ever more clearly. When she couldn’t swallow easily, she joked about how the ice chips she sucked on were her friends. Little things like that. She seemed interested, not in her condition, but in the nurses who helped her, in her church and in others outside her hospital room. Each time I left her, I felt she had done much more for me than I for her. This was especially true when at last she died – years ahead of her bereaved mother. I felt she had given me the gift of her whole life. From this world’s viewpoint, her death was a tragedy. But I think from Jesus’ standpoint it was a triumph. Instead of bitterness, despair and self-pity, there was faith, hope and love. I should think the Lord was proud of her: “Well done, faithful servant!” The foolishness of God is wiser than men.
Let us not fear to confess Jesus as the Christ, to know where that confession leads, to shoulder the cross to whatever destiny is ours, and give our lives to the purpose of real living, of eternal life. Let us not fear or be ashamed. Let us not have our Lord ashamed of us when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Mark, p. 112.
