What Hast Thou Done for Me?
Second Sunday in Lent 2006
Dr. Paul G. Humphrey
Mark 8:31-38
MK 8:31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
MK 8:33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (NIV)
You know that you are having a bad day when Jesus calls you Satan. Peter meant well. But, he could not see the fullness of what Jesus was saying. He saw through earthly eyes, and heard through earthly ears, just like we all do. Later Peter will understand what Jesus was talking about.
Peter will understand that Jesus had to die on the cross and be resurrected again so that Peter and all of us might have life eternal. Peter is just beginning to learn about self sacrifice, and he will soon see the greatest sacrifice ever made.
Many of you went to see The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, based on the C.S. Lewis’ book. Through this children’s book Lewis provides a powerful allegory to the crucifixion of Christ, in a manner that even children can understand. A little boy named Edmund had fallen under the power of the White Witch. He had fallen for her gifts and promises, and in the process became a traitor to his friends.
The Great Lion Aslan came to his rescue, but the White Witch reminded Aslan that as was written on the stone table, she had the right to every traitor. He was to be killed on the stone table. After the private conversation between Aslan and the White Witch was concluded, everyone was amazed that she let Edmund go. Aslan had exchanged his life for the boys. And, that night the Great Lion surrendered himself to the witch and her followers. There on the stone table where Aslan was bound the evil witch stabbed and killed Aslan.
Aslan’s friends cried and cried and early the next morning went to recover his body. But, they found the stone table broken and Aslan was nowhere to be found. Suddenly they turned around to find the great lion alive! Shaking his great mane! Weeping for joy they asked how this could be. “What does this mean?”
Aslan replied, “It means that though the witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”
I don’t know that we can begin to comprehend the price that Jesus paid on our behalf. He was the spotless lamb. He was the only one that could die in our stead. Fully God, and yet, fully man, we hear Jesus praying to the father, “if this cup might pass before me, yet, not my will but thine be done.”
Peter’s rebuke of Jesus was very similar to the words of the Tempter during Jesus days in the wilderness. Satan sought to thwart Jesus’ goal. He offers an easier way, not God’s way, but an easier way, a way devoid of the pain (or so it seems at the time), a way devoid of the salvation of humankind.
Peter had the ways of man in mind, rather than the ways of God.
MK 8:34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (NIV)
Three things stand out about following Jesus in this verse.
First, if anyone would follow me, he must deny himself.
It is not Satan that gets in my way when it comes to serving God. It is “me” that gets in my way, that causes me to often fail to follow God’s way.
We have to set self aside as best we can to be effective in God’s work. That goes against our very nature doesn’t it? I remember a church once where the people decided to get rid of their pastor. Some of the remarks were like, “we just weren’t getting fed.” I’ll tell you, if you don’t do some feeding yourself, you will starve. Or, I just wasn’t getting anything out of that church. You will get out of church what you expect to get. We are making church out to be Wal-Mart. Here is Jesus telling his followers, if you want to follow me, deny yourself and take up your cross.
The first thing is deny yourself, the second thing is, “if you would follow me, take up your cross.” As John Gilbert expertly expressed on today’s bulletin, the cross that we bear is not an infirmity or an affliction, rather it is something we choose to take up. It is a ramification of our faith and action.
There was once a man complaining about the cross that he had to bear, so an angel ushered him up to heaven and took him into a room filled with crosses. The angel told the man, set your cross down and pick out another. The man looked and looked, some were large, some were thorny, and he looked and looked and finally picked the one that looked easiest to bear. The angel said, “That is the one that you brought in.” (Source Unknown)
The cross we bear is not above our ability, or I should say, God’s ability to help us to bear.
So, the first two requisites for following Jesus we have looked at thus far have been deny yourself, and take up your cross. The third might not even seem to be part of the list. It is so straight forward in the sentence that we might just overlook it. Yet, I would say to you that it is probably the one of the three on which most people stumble.
MK 8:34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (NIV)
The third is simply follow me. I know people willing to deny themselves, willing to carry their cross, and yet, don’t, for various reasons. I will do it later. I am really not sure what to do. I am not sure that God is calling me to do anything. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we can see the crimson path of Jesus going before us. Deep down, we know how to follow, and we can hear the Spirit’s call.
Jesus once told of two sons. The father asked one son to do a task, but the boy refused. He asked the second son to do the task and he said, “I will.” The one who said, “I will,” didn’t. And, the boy who said “I won’t” did. Do you follow that? Jesus asked, “Which did the will of the Father?”
Jesus says to us, follow me.
MK 8:35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels." (NIV)
We have to die to the old self to live in the new self. Jesus words here at first glance might seem like he is saying that we earn our salvation by following him. Yet, the fullness of the equation is that we are able to follow him because we are saved and because we are being transformed.
There is nothing in this world that even begins to compare to the gift that Jesus has provided for us. What can we even compare to the value of our soul? As we look to Jesus’ cross, we will suddenly find that our cross isn’t much.
John Newton wrote:
In evil long I took delight
Unawed by shame or fear
Till a new object struck my sight
And stopped my wild career
I saw one hanging on a tree
In agonies and blood
Who fixed his languid eyes on me
As near his cross I stood.
Count Nicholaus Zinzendorf was another man deeply affected by the cross. He was born in 1700 to a wealthy family. He studied at the university in Whittenberg, Germany. After finishing his studies, he embarked on a tour of Europe, visiting museums, universities, libraries. At a museum in Dusseldorf his life was changed. He looked at Domenico Fetis’ Ecce Homo, which means “Behold the Man.” It is a painting of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns. It bore the inscription “I did this for thee! What has thou done for me?” Zinzendorf was a Christian, but as he pondered the question he determined that he had really never done anything for Jesus.
This event inspired his work for Christ. He turned some of his land, Herrnhut, into a spiritual retreat center that produced numerous Moravian missionaries, and likely sparked the modern missionary movement. Friends, had John Wesley never ran into a group of Moravians that so changed his life, the Methodist Church might not be here today.
Another lady saw this same painting in 1860 and penned the words
I gave my life for thee
My precious blood I shed
That thou mights ransomed be
And quickened from the dead
I gave, I gave my life for thee
What hast thou given for me?
As we sing this song, I pose a question to you, and challenge you to examine the Jesus’ gift of eternal life, and our earthly response. Are we willing to deny ourselves, carry even a small cross, and follow Jesus in the way?
