Please e-mail me with any comments or if you use any part of this at your church at Mail4ChrisR@aol.com. I would love to hear about it. God Bless! - Chris
Jesus and His disciples had been through a lot together. Prior to the discussion we read about this morning Jesus had healed and preached and traveled around the area and taught everyone who would come to hear. Early on Jesus selected the 12 Disciples. He chose ordinary men with ordinary lives. They are a diverse group of men with a diverse set of backgrounds. And each of them would turn out to be important to Jesus and the future of the church. Yet, as I have said over and over again since I first started preaching to you, the disciples were not the brightest bulbs in the bunch.
Continuously, Jesus taught them through sermons and parables. In the parables were lessons about The Kingdom of God. Some of them alluded to the cost of discipleship. Jesus had told about the sign of Jonah, about being in the heart of the earth for 3 days and 3 nights. But up unto this point in their lives together Jesus had not yet come right out and explained what was going to happen to Him in Jerusalem and on the cross.
Finally Jesus predicts His death. He explains the plan that included going into Jerusalem, suffering to death and then resurrection. In fact in verse 21 Jesus explains that this MUST happen. Jesus is trying to explain to His disciples that the death is not meaningless or an accident. Jesus tries to explain that He is not some unlucky victim, but a willing participant. What Jesus is doing is explaining the Will of God. He is explaining the divine plan.
And Peter’s response is what we expect. It is the same type of response I said I would have had. Last week, I said I would have a similar response of rebuke. I would try to reason with Jesus. I would even have wanted to argue with Jesus. But that is my human nature. Because God’s plan is far too big for our small and finite minds to comprehend. So Peter’s response is entirely human. Peter wanted things done on his terms.
This reminds me of a joke I once heard. A farmer wanted to get his wife a great birthday present. As he was driving down the road he noticed a sign at the local airport that read, “Experience the Thrill of Flying.” He thought that is it, my wife would love to see our farm from way up there… how exciting.
The farmer went to the airport, found the pilot and inquired about the price of taking him and his wife on a flight over their farm. The pilot’s price was too high for the farmer so he began to barter with the pilot. Finally the pilot agreed to a lower price, on one condition: the farmer and his wife could not say a single word during the entire flight. One spoken word, however small, would increase the price to the pilot’s original fee. The farmer’s determination to give his wife the trill of flying was only surpasses by his determination to spend as little money as possible, so he agreed to the condition.
The next morning the three of them took off and soon were high in the sky. The pilot knew that if he did a couple roller-coaster dips and turns with the plane the couple in the back seat would surely speak up and he would receive the higher price. The pilot dipped and turned, climbed and dived, and even did a few loop-de-loops. But not a sound was uttered. Not a scream or a whimper. Nothing but silence.
As they were landing the pilot, amazed at the determination of his passengers, yelled back at the farmer, “I can’t believe you didn’t say something up there! Through my dips and loops, you two were quiet the whole time. I guess you win!”
The farmer shouted back, “Well, you almost won, son. You almost won. I sure felt like hollerin’ when my wife fell out.”
You see, the farmer was determined to get what he wanted on his terms. Peter had a similar sense of determination. Peter did not understand why Jesus had to suffer and die. Peter wanted to argue his point. He was determined to create another plan. In fact, in verse 22 it says, “Peter rebuked Jesus.” The disciples had determined for themselves that the messiah would come for Israel alone to overthrow its enemies. They had to put away that dream.
Jesus response seems harsh, but stern. “Get behind me, Satan,” is how Jesus responded to Peter’s egotistical determination. He calls Peter a stumbling block and says “you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.” I like the way Eugene Peterson translates this passage in his Bible translation The Message: “You have no idea how God works.” Ouch.
Somewhat uncomfortable for me to admit, Jesus knew the divine plan, after all He was God in human flesh. Peter was not God. Jesus told Peter, “Get Behind Me.” What Jesus was doing was, He was telling Peter and the disciples about the correct posture of discipleship. “Get behind me.” In order to be a follower, you had to be behind a leader. This was a call for Peter and the disciples to renew their discipleship. To experience it at a deeper level. This is a formula, not merely location. Jesus said, I am going to Jerusalem, I am going to the cross. If you are a true disciple, a true follower then you will follow all the way there.
Jesus continues by making this point clear. Jesus addresses the issue of true discipleship. Discipleship is based on faith in Christ and a confidence in the future victory of God. Discipleship is not merely a high human idea or a noble principle of being a church memember. Discipleship is not just about living a good life or following the advice Jesus gives. Discipleship has costs. And our faith should tell us that something has happened on a cross 2000 years ago that makes everything different.
What Jesus is saying is that to believe in Him as the Christ, to confess His name, just as Peter did in the passage previous to our passage this morning, is to live a life that is reoriented toward the good news that God has acted decisively and ultimately in Jesus. The following verses, 24-26, are a call to discipleship based on faith and a sure belief and conviction that God has already won the war against evil and sin. This life of discipleship is not just a “I’ll do what I can, depending on whether or not I have the time or I feel something is right or good.” Or “I will do things my way.”
This call to discipleship is a matter of confession. Discipleship means to declare your faith in Jesus boldly to the world. Throughout the Bible the word used to mean confession in the Greek is mar-teer-ee-on. Martyrion. Do you hear another word in that word, martyrion? Of course, the same word used for confession also means martyrdom. Martyrdom in the sense of witnessing or confessing your true belief in something other than yourself.
Look at verse 24.
In the first century, taking up one’s cross was a colloquialism, a slang expression for dying to what you want. Jesus tells us that as disciples we should deny ourselves take up his cross and follow. Jesus is referring to giving up your desires for His desires. You see when you saw a person carrying a cross during those days you knew only one thing was ahead of him – death. Think of Jesus walking through town up the hill to Calvary. People knew Jesus was carrying that cross because He was on his way to his death.
When we take up his cross daily, we are testifying to the world that we are giving up our life as an act of a testimony to a much bigger truth than we are. Many around the world still confess by literal martyrdom. That is not the case in our culture. Although for us, the call to give one’s life as a testimony to the truth of the gospel is no less real. For us, as we discussed a few weeks back, self denial, taking up that cross, confessing that you are Christian and you believe in the cross, is an action of participating in sacrificial love. Discipleship here may simply mean orientating our lives to serving God by serving others, rather that idolatrous self-orientation.
You see, the call to discipleship is also a matter of community. What good will it be to gain the whole world yet lose your own soul? This is not about individualism. This is about a Christian ethic that puts everything on the line for the common good of the community. Sure you can gain the whole world for yourself, but that will do you no good. Instead deny yourself and serve others, that is the call of discipleship.
The meaning of discipleship is learned along the way – a lifelong process. Jesus says, “Get behind me.” Follow along and you will learn what it means to be a disciple. Hopefully, we read our Bibles for more than good stories and sound advice. Hopefully, we study so as to see an example of how to shape and mold our own lives. Sure you can be a believer and not a follower. To take this further you can be a follower and NOT a disciple.
William Barclay once wrote, “It is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple; to be a camp follower without being a soldier of the king; to be a hanger-on in some great work without pulling your weight. Once someone was asking to a great scholar about a young man. He said, “So and so tells me that he was one of your students.” The teacher answers devastatingly, “He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.” (How many of the teachers here this morning can relate to that?) Barclay continues by saying, “There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student.
Jesus calls us to be true disciples not distant followers. Discipleship is a learning process. We learn how to serve Jesus and serve others along the way. For the disciples Jesus was addressing this very thing that day, Jesus was explaining how to find life.
Look at verse 25.
This is the message of the cross. On the cross, Jesus experienced death but He found life. On the cross we can see death but we should find life. We need to understand that life comes by death. Life comes through our martyrion, our confession, our martyrdom, which for all of us is our self denial. To die is to live. Our desire should be replaced by the desires of God. Our desire should be to want less of ourselves and more of Jesus.
We have to overcome our own determination to have things done the way we want them done. For the farmer, in my earlier joke, he got what he wanted but with a result that he probably had not counted on. Some of us are like that. In matters of our family, our job, our involvement in the church, in social matters such as race or sex discrimination, education, or war. We can be strongly determined to have and do things our way. We let pride or stubbornness get in the way of learning from Jesus example, of doing what is not in our interest but in the interest of God. Often that means getting out of the way, not being a stumbling block, but to get behind God and let God do the leading. We must deny our pride, deny ourselves. Our determination should not be for ourselves but for God’s will to be done. Only then will we find life, life of peace, justice, and grace. This is the message of the cross: Life comes by death.
Let us pray.
