Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own
father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even
his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and
come after me cannot be my disciple.”
On the one hand, these words are easy enough to understand.
The words and sentences are simple. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you
must hate family and even yourself and tote your cross as you follow Him.
That’s what the words say; that is the easy part. But, on
the other hand, is that Jesus really means? Is the Lord of Love teaching the
very antithesis of love, that we should literally spite our parents who reared
us and our children whom we reared? For that matter, are we released from the
pledge to our spouse to love, honor, and cherish in sickness and health and
remain faithful til death do us part?
No – no. Jesus did not come to undo the Law and the
Prophets; He came to fulfill them. He’s not tossing aside the 4th Commandment
or the 6th Commandment. What He is doing, though, is emphasizing the
importance and necessity of following Him first and foremost. He’s using a
rhetorical device where one thing is overstated to emphazise the other. He’s
not teaching hatred. Rather, Jesus is saying that all other people, even your
own self, are secondary to Him. Yes, you love your parents and children and
neighbors, but never at the cost of loving Jesus first and foremost.
Jesus is speaking to the crowds that are following after Him
and the Twelve. Some are there, truly wondering if Jesus really is Messiah.
Some are there with simple faith that is continuing to grow. Some are there out
of idle curiosity. Some are there hoping for a taste of the kingdom they
presume He will bring with power and authority and armies. Here was a Man, a
worker of miracles, a teacher of great parables, so filled with gravitas that
being His disciple, following after Him should be a piece of cake and bring all
sorts of health, wealth and happiness.
Wrong. Discipleship isn’t easy. Whether it’s today’s prosperity-gospel
preachers on television or the glory-hungry crowds that followed in Jesus’
footsteps in ancient Jerusalem, we do not get to set the terms on discipleship.
It’s simply not possible, not is it permissible, to come to Jesus with
explicit, up-front expectations of what discipleship is and our anticipations
of what discipleship will give to us.
No one can come to Jesus, to follow Him as a disciple, and say,
“Well, Jesus, I want to be a disciple, but I want you to know up front that my
parents are really the most important people to me.” Jesus says you can’t do
that. We can’t say, “I’m excited to begin this new life of discipleship, Jesus,
but I’m not really into suffering, especially if I have to risk my friends, my
job, and my good reputation I’ve worked so hard to attain.” Jesus says you
can’t do that. We can’t say, “I’m willing to give up almost anything, but if my
life’s on the line, then I may have to reconsider.” Jesus says you can’t do
that.
You can only be a disciple of Jesus if you allow Him to set
the pace, to guide the journey, to make the agenda. Disciples follow, remember?
You cannot be His disciple on your terms. He will not accept that kind of
discipleship because that’s not discipleship. That’s not following. That’s
trying to lead. You don’t know the pace He will set; you don’t know where the
journey will lead; you don’t know what the agenda will be.
Jesus does. And, when Jesus does tell us what discipleship
will give, it’s not what you expect: it gives the cross. “Whoever does not beat
his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” You don’t know when, or
where, or why you may have to bear a cross.
We’re not very good at cross-bearing. At least, I don’t
think we are as a society, as a culture, and even as the North American church.
We’ve been told for so long in our day-to-day routine that we can have it all
at little or no cost and, simply, that’s not true.
A cross is not something you chose. A cross is laid upon
you. Likewise, a cross isn’t an inconvenience, or a result of a bad decision,
or a difficult family situation. Heartburn, bad grades, chronic pain, even
crabby in-laws – these are difficulties in life, yes, but they are not crosses
as Jesus speaks of crosses.
What do crosses do? Answer that with first century lens. How
did the crowd hear and understand Jesus’ words? They saw what crosses did
first-hand. Crosses kill. They are instruments of suffering and death. To take
up your cross is to take up your death. You can’t follow Jesus without a cross.
His way is the way of death and resurrection. So if you want to follow Jesus in
the way He’s going, then you need to pick up that cross of yours, and go the
way of death and resurrection with Him.
Suddenly, this business of being a disciple doesn’t sound
like so much fun anymore, does it? It's no wonder that many turn away from
Jesus today. They did it then, too. Some will remain, but many – perhaps most –
of the crowds soon began to turn away. It won’t be long that their cries go
from Hosanna to Crucify Him. They don’t like discipleship. They don’t like the
cross. It sounds dangerous, deadly even. The cross was too much to bear.
For most of us, we’ll never be at a position where we have
to make a choice between parents or Jesus. So, it can sound a little
theoretical, these words of Jesus. So, let me tell you the true story about a
man named Edward Balfour. Edward grew up in a Jewish home. He want to Synagogue
school and learned Hebrew. His family kept kosher and went to the local temple
for worship, especially on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, making their
sacrificial offerings of fasting and money, making amends with those whom they
offended, and praying God would somehow be merciful for their failings. But,
Edward always felt guilty, empty, and afraid.
In his late teens, he met a Lutheran pastor who told Edward
of Jesus and His death on the cross for the forgiveness of those very sins he
carried. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Edward believed Jesus was the very
Messiah that the Old Testament promised and at the age of 20, he was baptized
in the Triune name of God. Through water and word, Edward became a disciple of
Jesus. But, at terrible personal cost. His own parents denounced his Christian
conversion, first threatening him and then considering their son as dead to
them. When Edward became a Lutheran pastor, no one from his family came to his
graduation, his ordination into the Holy Ministry, or his installation at his
parish. He wrote:
God knew that my time spent among those who chose to deny
Him would not be without pain, but He also knew what was necessary for me to
fully comprehend the grace that He bought for me through His suffering and
death. In declaring the old man dead in baptism, I am now one with the Lord.
Like Him who forgave even His worst tormentors, I have forgiven those who have
called me a Christ killer. I have forgiven the Jews who have threatened me and
my family with bodily harm if I continue to speak of Jesus as the Messiah and I
have forgiven the professed Christians who refuse to accept that a Jew can confess
Christ crucified. There are days when I need to be reminded of Jesus’ suffering
for me. I need to be reminded that He gave His life for those who reviled Him, called
Him names, beat Him, and then nailed Him to a cross. I need to be reminded that
even though I was not worthy, Christ out of his love for me died and rose from
the dead so that all His children could have eternal life in Him. (http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/AJourneyfromHopelessnessBalfour.pdf)
Edward’s story leads us to the good news hidden in today’s
Gospel. Jesus bears the cost of discipleship. Jesus bears the cost; Jesus bears
the cross. The cross is deadly – for Jesus. He lays down His life to save the
world. He becomes the world’s Sin. He dies our Death. He did not count equality
with God something to be held like a treasure but emptied His grasp of all that
He had to go to His own death on a cross. Jesus counted the cost of being the
world’s Savior. Jesus counted the cost of rescuing you from your Sin and Death.
And it was worth every drop of His holy, precious blood to save you. He gave up
everything that was His – His honor, glory, dominion, power, His entire life –
and for the joy of your salvation, He set His face to Jerusalem to die. He took
up His cross to save you.
He didn’t ask you to choose Him. He chose you. He baptized
you. He called you by His Spirit. He put you on the path of life before you
even so much as twitched. You were dead and God made you alive in Christ. You
were dead and God rebirthed you by water and Spirit. He placed His cross upon
you, on your forehead and your heart, in token that you have been redeemed by
Christ the crucified. You were captive to Sin and Death, and God made you free
in Christ. Before you believed, before you were born, before you ever were,
Christ was your Savior and Lord and Redeemer. You didn’t choose Him; He chose
you. He laid His cross on you, not to kill you, but to bring you life.
I know…bummer of a text on a Sunday to greet new members, right?
Welcome to life under the cross of Christ.
That’s where you disciples, new and old, need to be looking:
not your cross, but His. This is what it means to trust. That is to say, we
become disciples only by faith. And faith takes us to The Cross where Jesus
died for you.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment