Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, February 25, 2024

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16+Psalm 22:22-30+Romans 4:13-25+Mark 8:31-38

When I first started studying the bible seriously, long before I ever imagined going to divinity school and studying it formally, the parts about Jesus talking about taking up our cross always confused me. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have some version of "deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23, Matthew 16:24 among others). My confusion was this: Jesus had not yet taken up the cross himself, so how are we to do that as followers of Jesus?

Of course, my first thought in overthinking this was to acknowledge that each of the evangelists who composed these gospels wrote it all down long after the fact, and Matthew and Luke certainly relied on Mark, and Mark heard it (or something like it) from Peter, and they all knew that's how Jesus died, and so that stuck it in their accounts as a way of foreshadowing what they knew to have actually happened.

That's a lot of mental gymnastics, which is probably a good sign that there might be a better and simpler explanation.

And there is.

Let's do a quick check of where we are in Mark's gospel, since Mark is the one we are dealing with today. Last week, we were at the very beginning when Jesus was baptized, spends forty days in the desert, and returns to begin his ministry in Galilee. Our reading today plops us down right in the middle of Mark. We read from Chapter 8, and the entire gospel is 16 chapters, so this is the midpoint. If we continued to Chapter 9, we would read the transfiguration account, which, as I told you when we read it a couple of weeks ago, launches Jesus away from Galilee and toward Jerusalem.

This is the first of three times Jesus predicts his coming suffering and death. This is the one that gets Peter into trouble for arguing with Jesus about it, too.

It is there that Jesus, for the first time, refers to the cross. So, if the later writers were not inserting that because they know the ending, what is Jesus talking about?

Crucifixion was a common and perhaps preferred method of torture and execution for the Roman Empire. It was truly an awful way to die. But it wasn't just about the ultimate death; it was about the humiliation, the shame, making an example of those who would challenge the empire. The condemned had laid upon them the cross beam, a heavy board or log, that they were forced to drag or carry to the place of execution, and it was a public spectacle. Once nailed to that cross beam, they were hoisted up on the vertical part - the crux - and, feet also nailed securely, they were left to suffocate. The whole violent affair was to set an example not just for those who committed some infraction, but for those who dared to challenge the empire.

The "empire," if you want to call it that, of the reign of God is the 180 degree opposite of that. So, if you take up that cross, you are committing yourself to being in this world but not of it, or "out of the world" as Jesus would tell his disciples (John 15:19). We do not belong to the world; we belong to God. And these days, that puts us, also, in direct opposition to a world that tells us that a good life is one of material comfort, of living to ourselves alone, of taking care of our own, of not rocking the boat when we see the hate and injustice that surrounds us.

To take up our cross is not to shoulder some minor burden. It is to risk our lives in order to save them.

A priest friend of mine tells the story of getting to know the former Archbishop of Sudan in the late 1990s when he (the archbishop) was taking classes at Virginia Theological Seminary. Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul is very tall, and my friend saw him walking along a sidewalk one day on his way to a church she knew to be some miles distant, and though she hesitated because her car was a compact, she stopped to offer him a ride. He gingerly folded himself into the passenger seat, and as they rode along, she commented on the very large bishop’s pectoral cross that he constantly wore. I will never forget his remark to her that we in the West wear our crosses as jewelry. In southern Sudan, they are a target marking you for death in that Muslim-majority country.

We who believe in Jesus and call ourselves Christians believe in a God who took on human flesh, who literally became one of us, who lived and died and laughed and cried just like we do. If we truly believe in the incarnation, then we must also believe that Jesus, who turned his face toward Jerusalem and certain death, also journeys alongside the fleeing residents of Gaza; we have to believe that Jesus weeps with Ukrainians whose existence is at risk; we have to believe that Jesus walks the troubled and dusty roads along the border of Mexico and the United States.

You see, when Jesus set his face for Jerusalem, he was giving a demonstration of what it means to follow – one that does not shy away from danger for the sake of our neighbors, one that promises to be in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, one that embraces the paradox of finding joy in sorrow, strength in adversity, love even when surrounded by hate. No, we may never be called upon to risk our lives for our faith, but we might have to risk our friendships when we proclaim the truth of the Gospel. We might have to risk our financial security when the needs of the world demand our generosity. We might have to risk the familiar comfort of our community in order to befriend the lonely and friendless. We might have to die to the things we think we need in order to live the life we are called to live.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake,
and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (8:35)