Whatever you may think of Jesus Christ, there is no One like Him in this world. This sermon title is referring to our Savior. Our subject has to do with any person who takes our Savior’s call to discipleship seriously. And we take note of the 35th verse from today’s Gospel, Mark 9 . . .”Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
So we ask, What’s the meaning of “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all”? Well, The Message translation of the verse says, “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.” A related verse is Mark 8:34, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Many times pastors have recalled the ancient legend that when Jesus arrived in heaven, the angel Gabriel asked what plans he had made for his work to continue. He replied that he'd left it all in the hands of the disciples. "And if they fail?" asked Gabriel. "I have no other plans", replied Jesus. Of course that's a legend but it makes sense. Jesus wanted His disciples to carry forward what He’d begun. He entrusted the entire future to them.
And what he’d begun was to renew, to redeem, to save the world through sacrificial love; to follow him in compassionate ministry. Guess what? Such work might well take us where we don’t want to go; put us with people with whom we’re not comfortable, doing tasks we wouldn’t choose on our own.
A war correspondent paused in a war zone to watch a nun as she unwrapped a wounded soldier’s leg. Gangrene had set in. The stench was so repulsive he turned away and mumbled under his breath, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” She glanced up and said, “Neither would I.” Because of who she was, she didn’t have to add - “But I do it for Jesus’ sake - and out of love for him.”
Those who follow after Jesus, says in Mark 9:35 and many more chapters and verses:
Deny self Take up your cross Follow Me
I read somewhere that "the entrance fee to the Christian life is nothing at all, but the annual subscription is everything you have." It fits well with my preaching professor who said that our life with God will sweep us off our feet! You cannot tell where it will take you. Those who have known God have been ‘stoned and sawn asunder and tempted and slain with the sword. They have been in prison; and at stakes [think Joan of Arc); and on a cross have cried aloud, ‘My God, My God, why?’ (Mark 15:34).Then he said life with God may make us feel life is even out of control. That something other than our personal will is controlling us:
“Paul felt that about Christ. ‘It is not I that live but Christ who liveth in me.’ (Galatians 2:20). ‘It is a fearful thing (says Hebrews 10:31) to fall into the hands of the living God.’ Paul began many of his letters with the words, ‘For this cause, I, the prisoner of Christ.’ (e.g., Ephesians 3:1). No, life with God is not easy.”
This entire challenge of the Christian life can pull us in many directions. I remember the story of a woman who tried very hard to live a Christian life. She was very sincere about it, and, to tell the truth, was quite similar to many others. She thought Christian salvation was in works and behaviors, and needed to grasp the Good News of God’s grace, God’s love manifested within her, “Being justified as a gift by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). To know that God, in his prevenient grace, acting long before we knew it, produced salvation for us. As the Message version puts it, “Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.” She was not alone with such a problem. However, her husband was not a Christian, and had no interest in being one. He preferred going to bars and being with the sorts of friends he could make there. She asked for Christian counseling about what to do. The husband strongly objected to her going to church, and accused her of not wanting to be with him at the bars. So finally she decided she would start going to the bars with him. That choice created a little fork in the road for her. No, actually a big fork in the road! When she came to that fork in the road, was it a wise decision? Are daily choices important? How much influence do they have upon our journey of life?
Jesus once used the illustration of a builder who counts the cost before constructing something, so he doesn't run out of funds before the project is done. Luke 14:28 says, “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” Jesus charged His listeners to count the cost of being a disciple so their life of devotion wouldn’t end up abandoned and a discredit to the kingdom of God. To take up the cross and follow our Savior means, no more, and no less, that you have to be willing to die to your old ways, to give up your life. In John 15:13 Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that a person lay down their life for their friends.” The Contemporary English version says, “The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them.”
During the Jan. 2, 2007 lunch hour, a man named Wesley Autrey was waiting for a train at the 137th Street – City College subway station in New York City, with his two young daughters. At around 12:45 p.m., he and two women noticed a young man, one Cameron Hollopeter, a film academy student, was having a seizure and fell onto the tracks. As Cameron lay there, Autrey saw the lights of an oncoming subway train. One of the women held Autrey’s daughters back away from the edge of the platform as Autrey dove onto the tracks. He thought he would be able to take Cameron off the tracks, but realized there was not enough time. Instead, he threw himself over Cameron’s body in a drainage trench between the tracks, away from the high-voltage third rail, holding him down in the murky, filthy water. The train operator applied the brakes, but two cars still passed over them. There was less than two inches to spare between them and the train overhead, leaving grease on Wesley’s cap. It took almost 40 minutes before rescuers got them out. Cameron was getting a little antsy, and asked, ‘Are we dead? Are we in heaven?’ Wesley said ‘no, we are underneath a train.’ He kept asking again and again until Wesley gave him a pinch and said ‘Dude, you’re very much alive!’” In an interview Wesley later said, “You know, I’m glad I did what I did and I wouldn’t change that day . . . I’m still always about helping people. I could’ve taken this to a whole different level (because of the notoriety he received) and become an actor or singer or something, but I think God has a calling for me.” Wesley Autry not only was willing to lay down his life for a friend, but in this case, it was for a total stranger! Wesley was later honored by Mayor Bloomberg, who called him “The Subway Hero”; and he received numerous honors and gifts, and his daughters were given college scholarships. Three weeks after the rescue, he was invited to our nation’s capital and recognized by President George W. Bush in the 2007 State of the Union address.
So we have a powerful call when Jesus says, “lay down your life”. In Mark 8:35, Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” That’s the big question: are we willing to lose our life in order to gain it? Can we make compromises with the Lord and say, "Yes, I will be your disciple tomorrow, but I am too busy or not of the right mind today"? That is a question each and every Christian must answer for themselves.
Near the end of the Second World War, a young German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sat alone in the darkness of a prison cell in one of Hitler's concentration camps. Some 12 years before, he realized that Hitler was an evil force, totally in opposition to the good that is represented in Jesus Christ. He became an early resistor of the Nazi movement, and spoke out vehemently against Hitler's oppressive misuse of power and his corruption of German society, especially his undermining of the churches by making Christians complicit with the Nazi regime. Yes, the majority of German Christians in the 1930's had “bought into” Hitler’s take-over. Bonhoeffer was offered the safety of a teaching position in America, but instead he chose to return to his home country to oppose Hitler. When he’d written, "When Christ calls, He bids us to come and die", he meant it. He lived out his belief, standing firm, unwavering, for his faith. He was accused of being associated with a plot to assassinate Hitler, and was arrested and tried. As a faithful disciple of Christ, while the Nazi regime was collapsing, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged to death on April 9, 1945 in the Flossenburg concentration camp, only two weeks before soldiers of the United States 90th and 97th Infantry Divisions liberated the camp. Never flinching in the face of danger, he became a genuine 20th century Christian martyr. He believed, either you were a Christian or you were a Nazi; you could not be both. There was no alternative but resistance.
Can we, all things considered, devoutly, wrap our minds, our hearts, around this understanding? Not everyone will be called to a martyrdom like Bonhoeffer’s. While there are thousands, if not millions, of martyrs; they remain a minority. There are martyrs as we speak, in Africa, in China, in Russia, and many other places in our world. People who live under a situation of great oppression, for their faith. Let’s be honest. Most of us will not be included on a list of martyrs, or would even want to be. Can we confess that? History tells of thousands of martyrs over the centuries. We might think of: Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr in 34 AD, his story told in the book of Acts; Thomas Becket, 1170; Jan Hus, burned at the stake in 1415; Joan of Arc, 1431; Thomas More, 1535; Maximilian Kolbe, Catholic priest, martyred in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, 1941. The Gallery of 20th Century Martyrs at Westminster Abbey, shows Mother Elizabeth of Russia, violently killed in 1918 by the Communist government; Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated in 1968; Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador, assassinated in 1980; and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1945.
For those willing to trust in our suffering Savior, choosing to follow Him steadfastly, paying the price, there is a promise: Faith in Christ will see us through suffering. Bonhoeffer took that belief, central to his Lutheran-based Christian faith, so seriously that it cost him his life. For him, Mark 8:34 was a commandment to be followed without reservation: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” And, further, he knew deep within, the peace that comes from such commitment. Paul defined that peace in Romans 5:1-5,
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
In his book The Cost of Discipleship Bonhoeffer reminded us that being a true follower of Jesus Christ will cost us everything, even our life. And one of the challenging discipleship hymns asks,
“Are ye able,” said the Master, “to be crucified with me?”
“Yes,” the sturdy dreamers answered, “to the death we follow thee.”
Lord, we are able. Our spirits are thine. Remold them, make us, like thee, divine.
Thy guiding radiance above us shall be a beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.
