“The God We Need”
Mark 8:27-38
Peter gets the title right, but he doesn’t seem to understand what that title means.
And so, when Jesus starts to talk NOT about the road to glory but instead the one that leads to the Cross, Peter rebukes Him…and then Jesus rebukes Peter right back.
Which might call into question our own understanding of Jesus.
Because Peter’s definition of “Messiah” might be the one we prefer as well.
Peter, we, and just about everyone probably want a God who heals our every illness, provides us with financial prosperity, guarantees our security, roots our sports teams on to victory and generally keeps us happy, healthy and wise.
But that’s not exactly what Jesus seems to offer.
Instead, Jesus points to a God Who meets us in vulnerability, suffering, and loss.
A God Who meets us in those moments when we really need God, when all we had worked for, hoped for, and striven for fall apart and we realize that we are, quite simply, mortal, incapable of saving ourselves and desperately in need of a God Who meets us where we are.
And this means that we don’t necessarily get the God we might think we want, but instead, the God we need.
Will Willimon tells of a friend of his who hit rock bottom, spun out of control, and crossed the median heading the wrong way at 100 miles per hour.
He fell from his prestigious place as an attorney to the depths of alcoholism.
He came home one day to find his family, his pastor, and three of his closest friends all sitting in his living room.
And it wasn’t his birthday, and yet it was in a sense.
He is now on his way to recovery thanks to his loving wife and children and the good work of AA—but especially because God is a God Who meets us where we are—when we really need Him or when we know we really need Him.
“I had always gone to church,” the man told Will, “but always in the back of my mind, I thought Church was for losers, the weak.
But you would be amazed at what I’ve learned about God.”
“Like what?” Will asked him.
“Like so many phrases I heard all my life suddenly have become real to me,” he replied.
“Like what?” Will asked again.
“Like take up your cross’ and ‘You can only find your life by losing it.’
Through hitting rock bottom, I’ve met God,” said Will’s friend.
Thus far in our Gospel Lesson, Jesus has been talking only to His disciples.
But after His encounter with Peter, Jesus calls the crowds to come closer and listen up.
He then takes up the question of the Christian life, stating plain and simple that those who want to follow Him must deny themselves and take up their cross.
But we need to slow down a minute here, because we all too often view Jesus’ language of cross-bearing and denial through the lens of…say… “Weight Watchers.”
You know, have a little less of the things you like, don’t over indulge in the things that make you happy, cut enjoyment calories whenever possible because they’re not finally, I don’t know—Christian.
But I don’t think that is what Jesus is talking about.
I think instead, Jesus is saying that the “life” that has been packaged and sold to us isn’t real life and we need to die to those illusions to be born into the abundant life God wants for us.
Here’s the thing: many of us tend to think that life is something you go out and get, or earn, or buy, or win.
But it turns out that life is like love, it can’t be won or earned or bought—only given away.
And the more we give it away, the more we have.
In fact, only when we love others do we most understand what love really is.
In the same way, only when we give away our life for the sake of others do we discover it.
Somehow, in thinking about how to fulfill the needs of others our own deepest needs are met.
It’s the mystery of life and the key to the Kingdom of God.
That’s one reason why becoming involved in “hands-on” ministry is so important for our spiritual lives.
Volunteering at the Food Pantry, the Community Kitchen and the vast array of other available ministries is essential.
I read an interesting story this past week written by a person named Kyle Childress.
Kyle shares the following:
“A good while ago, back in 1991, our small, struggling congregation was faced with caring for some men with HIV and AIDS.
It was controversial: we were small and did not know if we were going to survive as a church or not.
We were desperately trying to attract young families and here we were talking about caring for men with AIDS.
We couldn’t come to any resolution and we were afraid of our church dying, but we knew here were some particular men who were sick and alone and who needed someone to help them buy groceries and take them to the doctor.
So, we started there.
We knew that Jesus wanted us to do at least this much.
Over time, one small step at a time, our care expanded into creating a new organization, putting together worship services of prayer and healing, and becoming friends with people we never dreamed ahead of time we could befriend.
Was that following the way of the cross?
I don’t know.
At the time it seemed to be the hardest thing we had ever faced.
We had few doubts about Jesus wanting us to care for these sick and dying men and we became so focused on the many small steps that we rarely looked up to see if our church was dying or if we’d end up on a cross or not.
Twenty years later we’re still here although we’re still small.
We didn’t die although we buried many good friends who died from AIDS.
I do know that we don’t panic as much when Jesus starts talking about taking up the cross.
We’re more likely to cinch up our belts and ask, ‘Okay, where do we start?’”
Taking up our cross in not about dealing with some normal suffering or problem or part of human existence.
That happens to everyone, every day.
When Jesus took up His Cross, what did He do?
He chose—He wasn’t forced—to carry out the ministry that God wanted Him to do.
THAT is what “take up your cross” means—it is making an active choice to live into the ministry that God has called us to, every day.
I think it also means breaking free from the small box we trap ourselves in when “I” is the center of our universe.
I think it’s what Jesus is getting at when He talks about trying to save your life and losing it.
He said that, in fact, the only way to truly live is to give yourself away for the sake of others.
When we get trapped in the prison of our own self-interest, our own wants, or what “I” deserve, it becomes a place that robs us of life itself.
Think of Jesus, Who, is Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Jesus’ commitment to God was so complete that He literally gave up His life for it.
I think one of the reasons why the early Christians cherished this very challenging teaching of Jesus is because they literally faced the same fate.
The persecution they underwent for their faith, in many cases, put them in a place where they had to choose between their faith and their lives.
And when the time came, many of them chose to go to their own deaths for the sake of the life and love God offers us all.
They had experienced something that was worth everything.
Have you?
Jesus calls all of us to take up our cross and follow Him.
Jesus calls all of us to choose between the life this world offers and the life of the Kingdom of God.
Between heaven and hell.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “The cross is laid on every Christian.
The first thing which all Christians must experience is the call to let go of the attachments of this world…
…the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our new lives in Christ.
When Christ calls a person, He calls them to come and die.”
And in doing so, we become free to live.
And Jesus is calling people every single day.
The call is immediate, it’s here, it’s now.
We must respond one way or the other.
Remember the Rich Young Man who came running up to Jesus asking how to get eternal life?
Jesus said to him, “Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”
But, “when the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth…”
“He went away sad, because he had great wealth…”
…how radically strange this one sentence sounds to a world obsessed with money, fame and power:
He was sad because he had great wealth that he wanted to hold onto more than he wanted to follow Jesus.
How many people are “sad” because of the things that have them imprisoned to this world?
How many successful folks, in the worldly sense, are not experiencing REAL LIFE, true freedom and salvation?
How many unsuccessful folks, are not experiencing REAL LIFE, true freedom and salvation because they are running after all the wrong things?
Jesus Christ is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.
No one comes to the Father except through” Him.
No one passes from death to life apart from Christ.
We live in a world that is so messed up, so unhappy, so lost.
And the Son of God has come into this world in order to save us from the results of following it.
The sadness, the loneliness, the darkness, the lostness, the hell.
All we must do is forsake all else, take up our cross and follow Christ.
When we are giving up the rotten ways of the world, we really aren’t giving up much.
The devil would have us think otherwise, but it’s true.
And what we are gaining is worth everything!
Because in following Jesus to the Cross, we are also following Jesus to the Resurrection, and in doing so, we find that the way of the cross is none other than the way of life and peace and love and freedom.
God comes to us as One of us and calls us to follow.
And when we respond with obedience we learn who we are by learning Who Jesus is.
And we are most fully ourselves when there is less of Self and more of God, when we embrace the will of God, however painful, daily, hourly, continually it might be--when we move forward in the way of the cross toward the Resurrection Life.
Actually, Paul tells us that those who are “in Christ” have already been Resurrected in Him even though we are still living in this world.
And that is because we go from spiritual death to spiritual life as we become born again members of God’s Kingdom.
We have all kinds of crosses in our world.
They can be found in jewelry stores made out of gold and covered in diamonds.
But in Jesus’ day a cross was one of the ugliest things in the world.
It was a device for torture and death.
It was the most horrible shaming tool the Romans had at their disposal.
A person caring a Cross had been rejected and cast aside—sent off to die by the government.
They were the biggest losers in life.
And following a crucified Messiah would link the followers to such a shameful fate in the eyes of the world.
Perhaps that is why Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me…in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of [them] when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
(Pause)
Let’s pause here and think about it for a second.
What gives you the greatest joy in life?
What creates, for you, the deepest sense of purpose?
When do you feel most alive, most true to the person you believe God created you to be?
My guess is you aren’t thinking about something you bought, or even earned, but rather of something that was rooted in relationship, in acts of service, and even in acts of what the world calls “sacrifice” when you are caring for another person.
Self-denial and cross-bearing are not about being less happy, but about discovering the real and abundant life—a kind of life the world can’t even imagine—that comes in and through merciful love and service to God and people.
And this is what it is all about.
Have you found this yet?
It is available to anyone who will follow.
Amen.
