Mark 8:27-38
The passage we have heard from Mark’s gospel this morning
is one of the most profound descriptions of what Christian discipleship may
hold and indeed has held for Jesus’ followers across the centuries.
“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.” [Mark 8:34-35]
Taking up your cross
has been more than an expression of duty.
In the earliest days, that was exactly what the disciples had to
do. Tradition says that Peter was
crucified, but asked – asked! – that it be upside down, since he felt he did
not deserve to die the same way as Jesus, since he had denied him before his
own execution.
As a preacher, I also feel some trepidation speaking
about suffering and trial from the relative comfort and safety of this time and
place. Who am I to speak, when Chinese
Christians go about under governmental suspicion every day, or when Coptic
churches in Egypt are bombed, or when Pakistani Christians have been condemned
to death on charges of blaspheming Muhammed or disrespect for the Q’uran?
Even so, as one writer put it,
“Jesus says that every
Christian has his own cross waiting for him [or her], a cross destined and
appointed by God. Each must endure the
allotted share of suffering and rejection.
But each has a different share: some God deems worthy of the highest
form of suffering, and gives them the grace of martyrdom, while others he does
not allow to be tempted above that they are able to bear. But it is the one and the same cross in every
case.”[1]
The writer here knew
what he was saying. This was written by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian who spent the 1930’s
building and strengthening the “Confessing Church” in Germany that refused to
implement Hitler’s policies and Nazi laws.
In June of 1939 he escaped to New York City and was given a professorship
at Union Seminary in New York City, but when he learned of the imminent
invasion of Poland, he resigned to return to Germany just so that he could do
his part to keep the Church faithful to Christ in its hour of need. He knew what his cross was. It found him.
He had the right to speak about martyrdom. He was imprisoned by the Gestapo and hanged
in 1945 as the liberating armies approached.
Bonhoeffer had about a decade to train (if that’s the
word) for the ordeal to which he was subjected, and when the time arrived he
came through it honorably. I say, “Came
through it,” because when we follow Christ to Calvary, he carries us the rest
of the way beyond. That’s how we can
sing
“I will
cling to the old, rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a
crown.”
Not everyone gets the
kind of warning he had, though, or sees trouble coming from far away. Tuesday was the anniversary of 9/11, which
was a horrible, horrible day.
Nevertheless, it brought with it stories of heroism, where people risked
(and sometimes lost) their lives helping others, and I have no doubt whatsoever
that there were many more stories of faith and courage that we will not know
before we get to heaven because the faithful, courageous witnesses died that
day. Yet one thing we might still learn
from that tragedy is to set our minds and resolve our hearts so that whenever
we face a tragedy (at the same time praying that day may never come) that we do
so in the full Spirit of Christ, who said,
“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.” [Mark 8:35]
I haven’t been able to
find the source, but I’ve often heard that John Wesley insisted his preachers
be ready “to pray, preach, or die at a moment’s notice”. I’m thankful that I have so far had adequate
warning.
Not all crosses are dramatic, either, though all of them
are holy. When people get married, they
promise to express the love of Christ through their relationship to their
spouse. They promise to stick by each
other
“for better
or worse,
for richer,
for poorer,
in sickness
and in health,
to love and
to cherish
till death
do us part”.
In other words, they promise to give up living for
themselves alone, to lose a big portion of their own life for someone
else. It is all wonderful and good, but
for the most part they only find out what they promised to do down the line,
when their spouse loses a job and money gets tight, or becomes depressed and
needs to be loved through it for an indefinite period, or is confined to a
wheelchair by an accident, or any of thousands of situations that call for
conscious and deliberate sacrifice on the part of the other person. Yet it happens every day.
Yes, there are times when it doesn’t turn out that way,
and human frailty or normal limitations intervene. What about those?
The absolute worst persecution of Christians by the
Romans took place beginning in the year 303 at the order of the emperor
Diocletian. Many believers were
killed. There were even more, though,
who were tortured or imprisoned and survived, who came to be called “confessors”,
because they confessed their faith at great risk. (Think, if you will, of hundreds or thousands
of people like John McCain.) When
Diocletian lost his power and the Great Persecution ended, the question arose of
what to do about those who had weakened under threat or under torture, and some
Christians wanted to ban them entirely from the community. After all, hadn’t Jesus said,
“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
8:38]
At the same time, there were people who pointed out that
the disciples themselves had fled when Jesus was arrested, and only John stood
at the cross with the women as witnesses to Jesus’ death. Jesus himself reconciled with Peter after the
resurrection, and must have done the same with the others. So the Church said that only the survivors,
the confessors who understood firsthand what it is like to face those terrible
choices, had any standing to judge the others.
For the most part, the confessors, in turn, said they wouldn’t condemn
anybody and only Jesus could truly see anyone else’s heart. They might ask for signs of repentance, but
they wouldn’t cut anyone off from mercy.
For some
people, there is the cross that comes with being forgiven, with the struggle to
live with the deep sense of human weakness, but also (once the full awareness
of Jesus’ love breaks through the guilt) the job of being living witnesses that
the cross shows the infinite richness of divine love and compassion, love that led
Jesus to speak forgiveness even to his executioners. And, by the way, that sin and that
forgiveness takes in each and every person born. One way or another, the cross is the
beginning of life, not its end. So
“‘Take up
thy cross,’ the Master said,
‘Nor think
till death to lay it down,
For only
those who bear the cross
Can hope to
wear the glorious crown.’”
[1]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Discipleship and the Cross” in The Cost of Discipleship (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1963)
98-99.
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