Psalm 16, Genesis 22:1-14, Romans 8:31-39, Mark 8:31-38
There is a body of legislation on the books in most states today that we might call “truth in advertising laws.” They were enacted by state legislatures over the past several decades in order to protect consumers from false advertising claims about a product or service that a business offers the public.
I suspect that if these laws were ever applied to the churches of America, most of them would be closed down for gross violations of these statutes. It’s not rocket science to know that WHAT the consuming public values TODAY are things like convenience, ease of use, and anything that brings enjoyment, contentment, peace, and health. “It’ll make you happy!” and “You’ll really enjoy this” are the fundamental messages in advertising for everything from automobiles, to cosmetics, to foods of all kinds, as well as for services such as tanning salons, finance companies that will erase your credit card debt, barbers, banks, and bakeries. You any product or service, and I’ll bet their advertising is some version of “It’ll make you happy!” or “You’ll really like this!”
And, I’ve seen ads for churches which say the same things. And, even for churches that don’t say such things in the advertising pages of newspapers or on the commercials between TV programs, it’s pretty much the message you’ll hear from a vast majority of pulpits across America today, in every denomination you wish to name.
If I were a betting man, I’d bet a bundle that you will never hear or see advertising for the Christian faith that contains what Jesus taught his disciples in today’s gospel lesson. And, in that lesson, Jesus introduces an idea into his teaching of the Apostles that is jarring as far as it’s “niceness” is concerned. It comes in his ministry after a climactic confession that the Apostle Peter makes that is recorded in the verses that immediately precede the gospel lesson for today – when Jesus presses his disciples “Who do you say that I am?” Peter says “You are the Messiah.”
And, at that point, Mark says that “began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” And, Mark says further that Jesus “spoke this word openly.”
Now, I am quite confident that all the disciples blanched at this. This is exactly what they were NOT expecting as far as when the Messiah should appear. They were expecting – sooner or later – for the religious leadership to wake up, to come to their senses, and to receive their Rabbi as the Messiah as they had come to do. And, after that, Jesus would be elevated to the throne of David and lead the Jews in throwing off the Roman yoke.
But, what Jesus tells them is quite different. The leaders of the nation will not accept him; instead they will reject him. Jesus won’t ascend to David’s throne; instead he will suffer and be killed and after three days rise again. You might think that last bit would have caught their attention, but clearly it did not.
And, Peter, the chief of the disciples, wasted no time in taking action to repair the damage. Mark tells us that he took Jesus aside. He didn’t ask him a question; he took stronger action than that. It would have been something like grabbing Jesus’ arm and pulling him away from the rest of the disciples, so that Peter could bring Jesus up to speed on how he was alarming and confusing the disciples. And, both Mark and Matthew say that Peter rebuked Jesus.
Well, of course, Jesus was having none of this, and he gave to Peter as much and more than Peter gave to him. Turning away from Peter, Jesus faced the other disciples. And, then and only then did Jesus rebuke Peter – while Peter was at his back, and Jesus was looking at the rest of the disciples. And, so, Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
What an awkward situation that must have created. I don’t think the disciples had much doubt about what Peter was doing, even if he did take Jesus aside. And, they certainly didn’t have any doubt at all about how Jesus received Peter’s rebuke. Peter’s rebuke of Christ was intended to be private, but Jesus’ rebuke in response was about as public as you can get! Indeed, what Christ does next ensures that NO ONE can possibly ignore what he is beginning to tell his disciples, because Jesus puts his message out there not only for his disciples but for everyone outside this Apostolic circle.
34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” There’s no shilly-shallying here. Not only is Christ going to suffer, but his disciples are called to do so as well, and their suffering is precisely because they have denied themselves and followed their leader.
What is the disciples’ problem here? Jesus’ final words on this topic show us – it is their shame, that the one they have followed, the leader they supposed were going to restore the kingdom to Israel, should suffer as Jesus has just told them he must. And, so Jesus adds these words: “… whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
It would be nice to know that Jesus was successful in bracing up his disciples in this exchange. But, of course, he was not. When all his words came to pass at the end of passion week, they fled. They were ashamed, they ran away and hid, and Peter denied the Lord three times in public. Are they doomed when Christ returns? Fortunately not, for the Lord’s patience with them – and with us – is greater than we can imagine. But, they did learn a critical lesson from all this, a lesson that has two parts to it.
First of all, they learned to take Jesus at his word. Secondly, they learned to heed EVERYTHING that Jesus said. What is interesting is that Jesus’ gave them a datum that they apparently ignored: that even though he would suffer and be killed, he would rise from the dead after three days.
It is the resurrection, the triumph over death itself, that should have the difference, and if the disciples had believed it, they could have persevered through the suffering. How do I know? Because of what we find in today’s Old Testament lesson – the section from Genesis 22, where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only Son Isaac. Abraham sets out to do this, and he gets as close as one plunge of a knife from completing his obedience. Time does not permit us to dwell on how anguished in his soul Abraham must have felt as he drew nearer and nearer to that moment when his son would die. But, one thing we know from the author of the Book of Hebrews – that anguish had nothing to do with a sense of failure in God’s promises.
[Heb. 11:17-19] 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
At this point in his life, Abraham had walked with God many, many years. He had seen God prove Himself faithful over and over and over again. Like the old hymn puts it, “through many dangers, toils, and snares, he had already come.” And then this – “sacrifice your only son, the son about whom I have said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’ ” How could this be? If the fulfillment of God’s promises of an nation so numerous that no one could count them is to be fulfilled in Isaac, how is it that God now says, sacrifice him as a whole burnt offering? Well, there was only way out of it, and the author of Hebrews tells us that Abraham when he was tested proved obedient, “concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.”
Do you remember that detail from the reading in Genesis? Abraham said to his men, “I and the lad shall go over there to worship, and we will return.” WE will return. God’s promise to Abraham was at that time unfulfilled, but he trusted God would fulfill it, even in the face of death.
And that theme – suffering for the sake of obedience to God’s leading, suffering unto death when God’s promises are not yet fulfilled, but receiving the promises because God overcomes even death and raises the believer from the dead – this is a theme of Scripture that is at least as old as Abraham and Isaac. You find it all over the Scriptures, including the Psalm appointed for today, in which concludes with these triumphant verses:
10For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. 11You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
And, we find the same theme in that great passage on Christian suffering that is the New Testament lesson appointed for today:
32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
And, so Christ’s words to his disciples is true for us as well. “ ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The disciples faced great and powerful persecutions for their testimony to Jesus Christ. Christians in many parts of the world today – especially in parts of Africa, or the Middle East, or India and Pakistan, or Red China – face the kinds of persecutions that lead to suffering of all sorts, to prison, and to death, death for the sake of Jesus Christ and the gospel.
You and I do not face this kind of thing, at least not in anywhere as much severity as Christian martyrs around the world today. But, we do, I think, frequently face the temptation that Jesus pointed to when he confronts Peter and the rest of the disciples in today’s gospel lesson. We may not today face death at every hand – that may come, but it does not face us at this moment. But we do face this – the temptation to speak or to fail to speak, the temptation to do this or that, or to fail to do this or that, because we are ashamed of the gospel, because we value things of this world and not the things of the Kingdom of God.
Make no mistake – no Christian can possibly follow Christ without meeting some of the very things he met. On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus once more reminded his disciples about what he had told them for the first time in Mark 8: In John 16, Jesus said to his disciples – and to us as well -- 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”
Today’s churches are full of the values of the world, appealing to people the way Madison Avenue appeals to them. “This will make you happy!” or “You’ll really like this!” is how they pitch the gospel. And, as far as it goes, such a message is accurate IF AND ONLY IF you get ALL the message that Jesus preached. It NOT a message of happy-clappy, cheesy good-times for everyone. It is a message of victory over death. And that message is meaningful and helpful ONLY for those who understand that they are going to die, and whose hope is on One who overcame death and the grave, and everything that leads up to it.
God grant that we may not fear this world, or anything in it. Jesus has overcome this world. Though we die in this world because we are following Christ, Christ died in this world as well and rose from the dead. So also will we rise from the dead and share his kingdom when he comes in judgment with the holy angels.
May our faith be as Abraham’s, who knew God to be faithful, and powerful to keep his promises. Let us, then, rest in love of Christ, who is raised from the dead, who sits at the Father’s right hand at this very moment interceding for every man, woman, and child whose faith is fixed on him.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
