Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Who do people say that I am?” That’s a good question, and a
loaded one, that Jesus asks of His disciples. The people are starting to see
and recognize there is more to Jesus than just another itinerant rabbi. He was the talk of the towns. After all, He’s
dared to speak against the Jewish leaders. He preached with authority unlike
what anyone has heard in their lifetime – not since the days of old. He did signs
and wonders, marking Him as someone on whom Divine favor rests. He called people
to repentance, and declared the Kingdom of Heaven was there. “Who do people say
that I am?” It’s as if Jesus is asking, “Do they understand? Do they yet
believe that I am the One whom Scripture points to, the One for whom God’s
people have waited for centuries? How about it, guys? What are people saying?”
I wonder what would happen if we were to ask people in
Mission Valley, or anywhere in the Crossroads, “Who is Jesus?” What do you
think they would say? I suspect, here in a relatively Biblically conservative
area, most would say Jesus is the Son of God, but we might be surprised at some
answers. Extrapolating from a Newsweek survey in 2020[1],
about half will deny Jesus’ divinity, and even among Christians we can expect a
third to say Jesus isn’t God.
I wonder what would happen if we were to take Jesus’
question and turn it just slightly. Instead of “Who is Jesus,” what if we were
to ask, “Who or what is your God? Who or what do you put your trust?” In a
growing, secularistic world, author David Zahl suggests that careers, being the
perfect parent, having the latest and greatest tech, food, politics or
politicians, and romance have risen to become the new pantheon of American
deities that people worship.[2]
So, Jesus becomes a tool to help us get to where we want to be instead of
humbly placing ourselves where He wants us to be: under the cross.
What does that mean, to be under the cross? What does that
look like? For that matter, where is it? Life under the cross is a way of
expressing our struggles in this life because of following Jesus, and seeing
the mercy and grace of God for us in Christ, even in those struggles. These can
be physical, emotional, relational, economic, sometimes even spiritual. Think
of it as a crossroads where faith and life crash into each other. We know this
is true as a child of God, but we see this around us, we experience this thing
that seems contra. That is living under the cross.
Take Peter, for example. Right after asking “who do people
say I am,” Jesus turns the question to His own disciples. “But you, disciples,
who do you all say that I am?” Peter, always quick to act, speaks up “You are
the Christ.” Not just a rabbi, not just a teacher, not just a prophet, not even
the Baptizer, but the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One for whom Israel had
so long waited.
But, what does that mean, Peter identifying Jesus as
Messiah-Christ? By the time of Jesus, the title Messiah had lost a lot of it’s
theological weight and had become more and more of a political brand. The
historians tell us that there were many, many self-proclaimed messiahs by the
time of Jesus, revolutionaries who were willing and able to Make Israel Great
Again™, to lead a holy war against the heathen Romans, reestablish the rule of
David, and become the earthly king that Israel always seemed to think they
needed.
It seems Peter is operating under this model. He wants Jesus
to rise up and be a military king, a political pundit who is able to maneuver
his way into independence and revolution and heroics with bands and drums and
armies. It almost certainly has nothing to do with being under a cross.
But Jesus isn’t that kind of Anointed One. Oh, He is anointed as King, alright – but His
kingdom is not of this world. He will sit on a throne – but it will be a cross.
He will be raised up – when the soldiers lift his cross up to the sky. This is
all necessary. It is part of God’s plan of salvation to redeem the world from
her sinfulness, to save Israel from herself, to rescue the church into
eternity. He is anointed to be the once-for-all sacrifice for the world. He is
anointed to die.
And when Jesus speaks of this, it is so disturbing, so
appalling to Peter that He positions himself between Jesus and the Cross and
rebukes Jesus. I imagine the conversation could have been like this, “Are you
kidding me? I didn’t leave my fishing business to watch you simply walk into
town and die. This isn’t what my brother and I signed up for! It can’t be this
way, Jesus! We need to fight – in fact, I’ll whack the ears off anyone who
dares lay a hand on you, Jesus! I got your back!”
Peter wants a cross-less Jesus. He doesn’t want to talk
about suffering, or sins, or punishment, or hell, or damnation. He wants the
fun, the excitement, the glory…the world’s idea of anointing. But without the
Cross, there is no Anointing. Without the Cross, there can be no Christ.
This is why Jesus speaks so severely to Peter: Get behind me
Satan! Peter means “rock,” but satan means “liar.” No one wants a cross-less
Christ more than the devil himself, and in short order, Peter – the great
spokesperson for the confession of the Church – had also become the infamous
spokesperson for satan himself. See how easy it is? In a moment of weakness and
unbelief, Peter turns away from life under the cross. He shows the incredible
struggle of being sinner and saint at the same time. One minute, Peter
proclaims Jesus as Messiah and a moment later, and with the same mouth, Peter
tells Jesus He cannot go to the cross.
What’s the solution for Peter – for us! – when we get
ourselves ahead of Jesus? “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me.” Denial of self. This doesn’t mean giving
up Hershey candy bars for Lent. This means deny everything you have and are;
deny your whole life as you hold it. Try to hang onto it and you will lose it.
But, to lose your life for the sake of the Gospel, you will find. You find it
at the cross.
The cross is where Jesus must go. So, while we may understand
Peter not wanting Jesus to talk about the cross, that doesn’t excuse him. The
cross is where Jesus must go. You must allow Jesus to go to Jerusalem; must see
the Christ at the Cross. Cross and Christ go together. No cross, no death. No
death, no atonement. No atonement, no forgiveness. No forgiveness, no
salvation. No salvation, no Christ. Christ, you remember, means “anointed.”
Anointing happened in the Scriptures for prophets, priests and kings, and
Christ fulfills them all. Christ is the perfect prophet, proclaiming that the
Kingdom is here. He is the perfect priest, making the perfect sacrifice of
Himself, the perfect Lamb of God. He is the perfect king, ruling from the
throne of rough-hewn wood driven into the ground. His glory is in His death. He
is anointed to die.
Anything that gets in His way is the work of the devil,
satan, who is trying to stop the cross-focused Lord. Peter tries to get in the
way, the devil’s roadblock. “Get behind me, satan. You are not setting your
mind on the things of God but on the things of man.” Nothing can be in His way,
not even a disciple. Jesus must go. He must go to the cross. He must go to die
for the sins of the world. It was His anointing.
Cross-following isn’t easy. It’s harder today than ever
before, I submit, and it will be even harder in the future to come. Churches
are told to not talk about sins, and when pastors preach that way, they are
declared unloving or even worse. It’s tempting to make Jesus a cross-less
Christ so we don’t have to talk about who we are under the lens of God’s
holiness. Instead we can just be told to do our best and it’s all OK.
Jesus speaks a warning of being ashamed of Him. “Whoever is
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him
will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father
with the holy angels.” Jesus wasn’t simply speaking of His own generation when
He called it “adulterous” and “sinful.”
What are we ashamed of? What do we keep hidden and personal?
Conventional wisdom says to not talk about religion because it’s divisive.
Postmodernism has taught us that any person’s truth is as valid as the next. Political
correctness tells us that all roads lead to heaven and, besides, we shouldn’t
say who is and who isn’t a good person. In the words of the comic strip
character, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We are ashamed of Jesus,
the cross, and the Church that declares He is the only One who takes away our
sins, who justifies us, who washes our Sin away with His blood. When confronted
with the question, “Who do you say Jesus is?” we remain woefully silent.
So, how do we not be ashamed? How do we be better prepared
so that, when asked, “And you, who do you say Jesus is?” you are able to speak
of Christ with faithfulness instead of weakness? The Apostle’s Creed is a good
place to start. John 3:16 had been described as “The Gospel in a nutshell,”
also a handy verse to have memorized.
Have you heard of the “elevator pitch?” It’s the idea that
you have the time for an elevator ride to sell your idea to a fellow elevator
traveler. Now, what if you had to do that with the Gospel? What if you had the
opportunity to explain Jesus, or the Gospel, or the Christian faith in the
amount of time of an elevator ride from the lobby of Citizens to the third
floor? Make it simple, make it concise, but make it as full and rich as
possible. That was the challenge issued by David Heim, the executive editor of
the magazine THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY. Heim decided to ask various theologians to
try this exercise: what is the essence of Christianity in seven words or less?
The contestants could offer follow-up explanation of why they wrote what they
wrote, but they could only use seven words to convey the message. [1]
Try it: In seven words or less, answer Jesus’ question: “Who
do you say I am?” Prayerfully consider the question, read through the
Scriptures this week, and then be prepared to use it to answer, “Who do you say
Jesus is.”
I know this isn’t fair – I’ve had time to work on this – but
here is my seven word answer: Who is Jesus? “Through the cross, Savior of the
world.”
Amen.
[2]
See Zahl, David , Seculosity: How
Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became our New
Religion and What to Do About It. Fortress Press: Minneapolis, © 2017.
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