The Cross of the
Christian Family – Matthew 10:34-39
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
In this morning’s Gospel lesson, Jesus is continuing His
instruction and warnings concerning the life of discipleship. To help
understand what the life of discipleship is like, he uses the visual image of
the cross. : “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of
me.”
Crosses…we have them all around us as Christians. In my
office, I have a cross wall. They are made out of various materials, of
different sizes, of different styles. Some were mass produced and commercially available
and a few were made by hand – including by me. They were mostly picked up by
friends, family, and church members who thought I would like them. But Jesus does
not mean by “take up your cross from the shelf at Hobby Lobby.”
We sometimes use the expression, “it’s my cross to bear,”
when referring to a particularly difficult moment, challenge, disability,
illness, or unpleasant task. So, you will hear of cancer, or alcoholism, or an
unpleasant boss, or a dangerous job, or grief over the death of a loved one all
referred to as “a cross.” While those certainly are difficult and unpleasant
things to deal with in this life, Biblically speaking, those are not crosses,
either. These, too, are not what Jesus means by “take up your cross.”
Biblically speaking, crosses are difficulties and challenges placed
upon us by God Himself, directly or indirectly, as part of the life of discipleship
– that is to say, because you are a Christian. A Christian doesn’t have a
higher risk of cancer or alcoholism, or suffering the death of a loved than a
non-Christian. But a Christian, placed into a context by the very hand of God
and who suffers in that place and time because of the Christian faith, that
Christian carries a cross.
To the disciples and those gathered around, crosses were the
ultimate illustration of suffering. Crosses were used to put people to death in
a terribly agonizing, humiliating way at the slowest possible rate of death.
There was nothing quick about death by crucifixion; there was no easy way out.
Someone who was crucified would suffer terribly for hours, sometimes days,
until their heart and lungs gave out. So when Jesus speaks of crosses, it got
people’s attention. These are powerful and profound words. Jesus is speaking
this way – father against son, wife against husband – to get people’s
attention. He cuts through all of our sinful and foolish selfishness and
demythologizes the family and those who would practice non-charitable authority
within the family.
In today’s Gospel lesson, when Jesus speaks of “take up your
cross,” he is talking about the cross of the Christian family. Before a
“mother-in-law” joke goes racing across your brain, let me assure you: this is
no joke. There is no punchline here. Jesus is as serious as can be when he
places the family in the context of the cross.
Martin Luther once said that family is one of the hands of
God and it is through the family that God bestows His first blessings to a
human being. As Christians we know and recognize this gift to be from Him –
thus the 4th commandment grounds all authority in the vocation of
parenthood. Because the family is a gift of God, the devil will do anything he
can do to destroy it. He attacks a family constantly, and no matter what age,
no matter the family connection, no matter how many people are at home or if
you live along he works overtime to see this gift of God destroyed.
Whether you are single or married, older or younger, you are
part of a family. And when God joins a man and woman in marriage, uniting one
sinner to another sinner, there’s going to be trouble. I have had a few couples
tell me over the years that they don’t fight. I’m not going to argue with them
– I’ll take it as true, but I’ll also submit that those couples are the
exception, not the rule. But it doesn’t stop there with man and wife. When
husband and wife have a child, guess what? They have produced another sinner.
And just as the family multiples, so troubles and conflict multiply, sometimes
exponentially. To Christians who might naively think that every Christian home
will be peaceful and loving and kind and as Christian as any utopian
possibility, Jesus says, “I have come to set a man against his father, and a
daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a person’s own enemies will be of his own household.”
Do you know what is at the heart of most the fights you have in
your own home – husband vs wife, wife vs mother-in-law, daughter against
mother, dad against son? You might think it’s about toothpaste, or toilet
seats, dishes in the sink, or dirty clothes on the floor, failure to call home,
or calling too often, but those are symptoms of a greater issue. The core is when
one family member starts making exclusive claims, either out loud or in their
mind, about themselves, in effect declaring themselves god of the castle. One
individual holds himself or herself as superior to others, free to do as he or
she wishes, demanding obedience from the rest of the family, vaunting
themselves beyond the limits God has established in a relationship where
freedom is surrendered in loving servitude. Instead of faithfully fulfilling the
vocation of father or husband, mother or wife, child or sibling, and submitting
to one another in love, the individual tries to become a god – lowercase g –
and the demanding, dominating voice of the situation. In other words, at heart,
these kinds of fights are sins against the 1st Commandment when we
try to make ourselves out to be the god. This is true of children, parents,
grandparents, husbands, wives, in-laws and out-laws: when you arrogantly make
yourself the center of the family, you are guilty.
Repent. Repent of the arrogance and self-centered-ness and
foolish pride; repent of making yourself out to be god in place of the Triune
God. Repent of failing to see your family as a gift of God – imperfect though
it may be, yes – it is still His gift for you. Repent of complaining about your
mother in law to your own mother, your wife to your father, your sister to your
best friend for this family is the dearest and closest relationships you will
have this side of heaven. Repent…and believe the Gospel.
The Gospel says that Jesus took up His own cross for you. He,
who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and scorned its shame, He took
picked up His cross for the times you failed to carry your cross. He picked up
the time when you told your daddy that you wished your husband would be half
the man he was; He picked up the time when you angrily told your mom that you
were done with her and you wanted nothing else to do with her, ever; He picked
up the angry words whispered behind the locked bedroom door so the kids
couldn’t hear. He picked up all of your sins and took them to the cross, paying
for each and every time you made yourself out to be god in His place, trusting
in your own power and authority instead of submitting in love to Him and to
those whom He united you to in your family. He picked up your sins and died for
them, paying the debt of condemnation with His own blood. It was no easy burden
to bear. Physically, the load was so terrible that Simon of Cyrene had to come
along side Jesus and carry the beam but that was only part of it. Nailed to the
cross, Jesus died alone – isn’t that ironic? When we sin against our family, we
do it together as a family but Jesus…Jesus died alone, abandoned even by God
the Father.
Through the power of the Gospel and the spirit of God, you
have been baptized into Christ Jesus. In that baptism, you are eternally
connected to the cross of Jesus where forgiveness was earned for you. With the
sign of the cross on your forhead and your heart in rememberance that you have
been redeemed by Christ the crucified, all of your sins are washed away – even
the ones you have yet to commit against your family – in the name of the Father
and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. You are united to God through Christ…and so
is your spouse, your child, your parents, your siblings…all likewise united to
Christ.
And, that means not only are you united to Christ, but
through Christ, you are united to each other. That means you aren’t just a
family by blood, but also family through Christ.
Jesus reduces us to humility: the family is a gift of God,
yes; but the family is always subject to God and His authority. “Whoever loves
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” Jesus said. The family is
called to show mercy and grace and compassion and love and charity within the
family unit, but those all stem from what God has first demonstrated to us in
Christ Jesus. In other words, family members can only show the grace and mercy
and compassion and love and charity that is first received from Christ. And
doing that – receiving from Christ and sharing with the family – reduces the
pretense. Instead of making myself out to be God, I am instead a child of God
who distributes what He first delivered to me.
So, if you want to
learn cross-bearing, you don’t need to go to an oncology ward or an AA meeting.
Look in the home – look in your own home. You sit at the same table with knees
tucked under the same table cloth. There are times you look at each other with
so much love and fulness and joy and a sense of blessing that it brings tears
to the eyes. And then there are times you look at each other with so much anger
and loathing and frustration and near hatred that it brings tears to the eyes,
too. You can’t be that close to each other, in each other’s space, without
trouble arising. And so we get crucified in our families by people we love.
“It’s her fault…” “If only he would…” “My brother is such an…” And our Old Adam
and Old Eve creates self-serving liberty where freedom is to be surrendered in
love through Christ.
Repent…and take up your cross. You won’t have to search too
hard – I promise. Take up your cross. You don’t need to manufacture one or go
find one somewhere. Wherever two sinners are, there are crosses. We make them
for each other, sometimes by the gross, in an attempt for our Old Adam and Old
Eve to make ourselves out to be superior, to be the god of the castle. These
are the crosses you live with right now, in your daily life at home. You might
not call it a cross or have considered it a cross before, but you recognize it
and you hate it for the burden that it places across your shoulders.
To be clear: I am not speaking of
abusive relationships, where your life is literally at stake. In that
situation, in order to be able to take up a cross, you might need to flee for
your own sake or that of your children. And if that’s you, know you are not
alone. Your brothers and sisters in Christ are here, I am here, willing and
able to help you walk with you and carry that cross to safety.
But after the cross comes Easter: Easter with its joy and
celebration and promise of new life. Easter means the cross is in the rear-view
mirror and the suffering is gone. Easter means there is a new beginning with
sins forgiven fully and completely and restoration complete. Sinners, yes, but
sinners washed clean in the blood of Jesus. Easter has come and Easter is
coming again. I don’t mean April 2018 – I mean the day when Christ returns, the
last day, the resurrection of all flesh. All of the promises made to you on
that first Easter, 2000 years ago, will be completed and you will experience
the joy of the burden of all of your crosses removed from you. What a day that
will be!
But we’re not there, yet. Now, we still live under the cross.
The newly weds arrive at the honeymoon hotel only to discover the groom, in his
haste, booked the suite for the following week. The new wife looks at her new
husband and wonders how he could mess up a wedding date and what that holds for
their marriage. There’s a cross to bear. Parents, holding their brand new
hour-old baby girl, start to move from the giddiness of their little baby to
the real fears: how are we going to do this? There’s a cross to bear. A husband
of 3 decades sits at the bedside of his beloved who, doctors say, has but a
short time left in this life. There’s a cross to bear. The widower sits alone
in a nursing home, no visits, no phone calls, no birthday cards, and he wonders
why God hasn’t yet answered his prayer to be with his wife, fallen asleep in
Jesus and waiting the resurrection of all flesh. There’s a cross to bear. Worries
swirl around, fears threaten to overwhelm, and the cross looms large.
The Old Adam and Old Eve want Easter without Good Friday; the
sinner wants resurrection without the cross. Newly-weds want romance without
work; new parents want a soft baby without a loaded diaper. Jesus says that’s
not the way of discipleship; that’s not the way of Christian life. Take up the
cross.
Take up the cross and turn to your wife, who is your deepest
joy and hardest struggle… Take up the cross and turn to your husband, who is
all hands and no respect… Take up the cross and turn to your child who loves
you when the car is gassed up and who hates you when they are grounded from
going out with friends. Turn to them, take up the cross, and love them with the
love of Christ Jesus. You are able to take up your cross because Jesus has
taken up His cross for you and He promises that it won’t last forever…but His
mercy does.
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