Wearing or Bearing The Cross
January 25, 2009
Mark 1:14-20
14After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15He said, “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
16As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
17Jesus said, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." 18At once they left their nets and followed him.
19When He had gone a little farther, He saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20Without delay He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Him.
How would you describe a color to someone who had been blind since birth? Have you ever tried to describe a color to someone?
SLIDE -
What can you say about BLUE or RED or GREEN or a host of other colors to someone who has no concept of color, of bright, light or dark?
You would have to use examples from the senses the blind person did have - touch, smell sound, and taste.
And it can be pretty tricky, because two people may describe a color in 2 very different and unique ways. For example, we can describe BLUE as being cold. Isn’t that how BLUE is designated on faucets? Yet, you can also describe BLUE as a beautiful cloudless day. Or you can say BLUE is the color of depression, as when we say “someone is feeling blue.”
It’s not quite so easy.
Let’s try RED. We can say RED is the color of heat. A fire is RED, we can even say love is RED. But RED is also the color of blood and on the one hand blood is life giving, but blood can also be associated with pain.
YELLOW can be sharp and pungent, as we describe the taste of mustard. Yet, the sun warming you is also YELLOW. A flower can be a beautiful YELLOW.
PURPLE may remind you of a black and blue mark, which turns PURPLE; and is painful. But PURPLE is also the color of royalty and honor.
ORANGE is a sweet tasting fruit, and it also is the sun warming your face.
Explaining colors to the blind may seem next to impossible, and that seems to mirror the mission of the church as we seek to describe the mission and message of Jesus.
How could Jesus communicate the amazing depth of His love to human hearts?
How could Jesus present the fullness of time to a world broken into days, hours, minutes, seconds?
How could Jesus get His message across to people of different colors and cultures . . . to nations at war, fractured communities, not to mention broken families?
To get His message across Jesus preached and taught about “the kingdom of God.” The first-century world understood the concept of “kingship” all too well. Nations were ruled by kings, and kings were absolute authority figures with unquestioned control over their subjects. The Old Testament refers to the kingship of God more than any other divine quality. Israel was God’s first kingdom, and in a future day, all the nations will recognize God’s kingship and will bow down before Him.
So when Jesus spoke of the “kingdom of God” his audience, especially the Torah-learned Jews, thought they knew what he was talking about. A new kingdom which will begin on earth, more specifically in Jerusalem, as the Jews would defeat their Roman persecutors and rule this part of the world. That was their expectation of what it meant for the inauguration of the kingdom of God.
But surprise, they didn’t get Jesus’ point.
Jesus was not talking about establishing a place with borders, a kind of divine fiefdom. The kingdom of God wasn’t a political pie-in-the-sky, utopian dream-scape . . .
It was a new world reality in which people served one another because of the love they received from God and gave back to God.
Jesus spoke about a new kingdom, one that would change each individual who came into the gates of this kingdom, one that would radically change the world. It would be a new world because the person who walked in would not be the same person who walked out.
SLIDE - Remember the words of 2 Corinthians 5:17, when Paul said, “if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come.”
This is an important passage for us to understand, because when you break it apart, Paul is telling us when the old is gone, it points to a definite place and time when the old stopped. But when Paul talks about the new has come, he is talking about a newness that never grows old or outdated, it is a newness that is everlastingly new. Do you get that?
What a great statement from Paul, and how encouraging that is to know that our old person is really dead and gone . . . if only we would allow that old person to be dead and gone. Part of the beauty and power in this message is that the new person is new not only yesterday, they are also new again today, and they will be new tomorrow, as God pours His love into our hearts. And this continues day after day after day. That’s great news!!
SLIDE - In this passage from Mark, Jesus tells the people the “The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near.” When we think about the kingdom of God, do we think it has arrived or are we still waiting for God to magically wave His hand and say, “HELLO!! It’s time.”
You see, God needs us to complete the work He began. When He says it’s time, He means just that, it’s time to get started. When Jesus was walking and began recruiting the first disciples, the clock started counting down to the crucifixion. When someone says to you, “it’s time.” You know it is time for something to start, maybe a test, maybe a movie, maybe a worship, maybe it’s time to pray or read the Bible, but it’s time signifies something is about to begin.
For us, it’s time! Yesterday when I was walking around the AngelFood area, I ran into Pete McCoy who heads up ERF in Alexandria. Pete has a great ministry running and we spoke for awhile and he could not get over how great this ministry is. He was planning on telling so many people who come to ERF about what we are doing with AngelFood. He also commented about the spirit and the smiles and the laughter which was evident. He was so impressed with what we were doing. He looked at AngelFood not only as a way to save money and feed the body, but he saw it as a spiritual ministry to help bring God’s kingdom into clearer focus in Alexandria.
When Jesus said, “it’s time” that is what He was referring to. New ministries with new people getting involved, new lives being touched and changed on His behalf. It’s when we lose sight of the call of Jesus to get involved in ministry, when we forget that we are ministers for Jesus, that’s when we begin to struggle and lose focus.
I read an interesting story about a group of pelicans in California. If you’ve ever seen pelicans in action, you know they’re great fishermen, or fisher-birds. These pelicans were hanging out near a fleet of fishing boats. The fishermen on the boats would pull into the harbor, and clean the fish right on the spot, throwing the heads and the rest into the water. The pelicans picked up on this, and began eating the leftovers without having to go out fishing. If you’re a pelican, that’s good eating. So for weeks, they just sat by the harbor and waited for the fishing boats to come in.
However, the fishermen found out they could sell the fish waste, so they stopped throwing it into the water. The pelicans were caught unprepared. They continued to sit and wait for the fishing boats to come in and throw free food in the water. And they grew thinner and thinner and seemed able to do nothing about their situation.
Wildlife officials came to check out what was going on, and concluded that the pelicans forgot how to fish. So the officials brought pelicans in from another area to join the flock and teach the starving birds how to fish again.
Sometimes I wonder if we just expect God to throw the fish into the water, and we just jump in, pick up the pieces and we are done. If only it were that easy. But it’s not. God calls each one of us to minister, to perform in a ministry we are called to do. This is why those Ministry Opportunity forms were in your bulletins this morning. It’s time for us to look at some of the ministries God is calling us to do. It’s time to stop waiting to be asked and it’s time to step forward and say, “Hey, I want to do this.” I never knew we could. There are different things on this list which I have come up with. But that simply adds to the fun and ministries which can take place here.
HELPING HANDS
Cooking meals
fixing homes
BANNER MAKING
quilters, etc.
PROJECT LIONESS
MAINTENANCE
A number of year ago the Catholic Cardinal of Boston, Richard Cushing wrote about the church’s need for courage. He said:
SLIDE - If all the sleeping folks will wake up, and
all the lukewarm folks will fire up, and
all the disgruntled folks will sweeten up, and
all the discouraged folks will cheer up, and
all the depressed folks will look up, and
all the estranged folks will make up, and
SLIDE - all the gossiping folks will shut up, and
all the dry bones will shake up, and
all the true soldiers will stand up, and
all the church members will pray up, and
if the Savior of all will be lifted up . . .
then we can have the greatest renewal this world has ever known.
Fill out those forms, turn them in to the connection center in the lobby. My dream is that 100% of the people in the church would be active in a ministry they feel called to do . . . and when we are called and accept the assignment, we will find passion and commitment along the way . . . and we will also find a life of fulfillment and a life in which we help others know the great news about the Kingdom of God.
SLIDE - Too many people have chosen to wear a cross to look nice around their necks, but the cross has only become another piece of jewelry in their ensemble. Like that picture of Madonna who uses a cross for her performances. The other picture is of Elton John.
Is the cross just another piece of bling, junk jewelry. When you are wearing your cross during the day, does it remind you of who you are in Christ? Or do you forget you even have it on?
SLIDE - On the other hand, instead of wearing the cross, we should be like Jesus, bearing the cross. We should be burdened by His cross. We should be moved because of His love and sacrifice for us, that we have this great desire to bear the cross in His name so that we can help others experience the joy of knowing the hope we know about in Jesus.
Are you a wearer or bearer of the Cross of Christ?
