Texts:
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38
So here we are, plunked down in the middle of Mark’s Gospel. This week is a rough week for Peter, and it’s a rough week for us as well. It is yet another iteration, another reminder, of how shocking, scandalous, and subversive the cross really is. It is Jesus coloring outside the lines of what Peter and we expect because no matter how many times we read it, no matter how many times we hear it, we still find it hard to believe it. But to appreciate it fully, I think we need to read Mark 8:27-30 because verses 27-30 set the scene for what is happening now.
27Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
It was then that Jesus started describing the sort of shape this Messiaship was going to take, of his suffering and death, and it wasn’t anything like what they had hoped. It wasn’t anything like what they had dreamed. It was awful. After asking the disciples, “And who do you say that I am?” and receiving the correct answer from Peter, Jesus continues on, as though to say, “I am telling you who I am. Peter, this is me.” We’ve gotten so used to the cross that we forget how offensive, scandalous, and completely unimaginable it is to connect Messiah with execution by the state.[1] Imagine going to the Christian bookstore tomorrow to pick out a gold chain with an image of an electric chair hanging from it instead of the cross. It’s grotesque, but I have a feeling this would compare to how Jesus’ words sounded to Peter. Of course Peter would rebuke him! Of course he would! He would rebuke him, little knowing that he was rebuking the actions that would make for Peter’s - and for our - salvation. Jesus refuses to compromise, refuses to give, refuses to say, “Now Peter, I know you are saying this because you love me, but you should sometimes think before you speak.”
Instead, “Get behind me Satan,” echoes in his mind, making him feel like someone is pulling his nose hairs each time he remembers it. His face got hot as he felt the slap of Jesus’ words. The wind that had been in Peter’s sails after he had confessed Christ as the Messiah quickly deflated, his little boat threatening to capsize at his beloved teacher’s castigation. The hopes and dreams for a Messiah who would overthrow the oppressive government were dashed as Jesus began to tell his disciples the truth about what a Messiah’s life looks like, of what happens when people need a savior, of how our systems of justice end up killing the ones we need the most. Our desires to play it safe and our desires to live with just enough excitement to keep us breathing but not enough to really change the way we live are subverted as Jesus starts to tell us what it looks like to have a Messiah, and what it looks like to follow him.
So we have this picture of Jesus that is difficult to swallow, and as though that weren’t enough, then we receive a picture of discipleship that is not only difficult to swallow, but impossible to bear: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” So what happens first? Do you deny yourself and then become a follower of Jesus, or do you follow Jesus and come to find out that it has taken over your whole life, the way you see the world, the way you understand yourself to be? Denial is a scary thing. In our society, it conjures images of giving up things we like, of something that causes discomfort or pain, but I think Jesus is more revolutionary than that. The only other time denial is used in Mark’s gospel is at the very end. Jesus has been arrested and is on trial. Peter is trying to warm himself by the fire, trying to shake the all-to-fast occurrences of the day, trying to straighten out all that has happened in his mind, wondering why he didn’t say something, wondering what stopped him from doing something. “Nuh-uh, it wasn’t me.” Fearing he might be found complicit and on trial as well, Peter tries to save his own skin. Let us not too quickly discard Peter as unfaithful. This requires a long and hard look into ourselves, into the way our society works, into how we view our leadership - both spiritual and political. Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “Ours is a restless and impatient race, known for abandoning our saviors as quickly as we elect them for not saving us soon or well or often enough.” Our own ideas of how we want to be saved often get in the way of what actually saves us.
I think we hear “take up your cross and follow me,” and immediately start asking: what is my cross? What is the one thing I need to take up so I can follow Jesus? How can I figure out how to do this right so that I can be sure that I’m going to be accepted? How can I save myself? We immediately start thinking about ourselves and what we can do… and lose track of Christ and what Christ has done. We spend so much of our time trying to carry our burdens all by ourselves, so much time trying to hide the truth of who we are, that we forget the truth of who God is. What if taking up our crosses is not a taking up at all, but rather a letting go? What if taking up our cross is to realize the One who carried the cross? What if taking up our cross is simultaneously the reminder and the realization that we have been freed from it?
I think Jesus carried the cross because we could not. Taking all of who we are unto himself that we might receive all that he is, Jesus bore the cross that it might no longer be a symbol of hatred but rather that it would be reclaimed in an act of love. “If any want to be my followers, let them come to the cross and be made free.” It is when I realize denying that denying myself and carrying my cross isn’t about me, and it never was. It is about becoming wrapped up in Christ and who he is, until we find that our identities have slowly faded into who Christ is calling us to be.
Paradoxically, when we take steps to preserve ourselves, to try to figure out how we can deny ourselves our carry our crosses just right, that we deny Christ. Trying to protect ourselves from our neighbor, we forget that Christ came that we might be reconciled to them. Trying to protect ourselves from needing to depend upon others, we save for our retirements so that we won’t be a burden on our children only to find that we are so little a burden they forget we are there. Trying to protect ourselves from what it is to have a savior that was tried as a conspirator, as a criminal, we paint a picture of Jesus that has very little to do with the man we read about in scripture.
Jesus is coloring outside the lines of what Peter’s - and our - expectations for a savior are. He colors outside of the boundaries of who we think is in and is out, widening the story as he travels through the Judean countryside, picking up the lost, the lonely, the scared, the sick, and the abandoned. He colors outside the boundaries of how the power of God is expressed, in the roaring seas of creation, in a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud leading the Israelites, in the splendor of the heavens, and in the shame and abandonment of the cross. Jesus picks up Peter’s coloring book and starts scribbling all over the page of his neatly-constructed, carefully planned life.
Jesus blows through the walls of self-preservation and says, “This is how you save your life - you spend it. I give you eternity; I give you resurrection from the dead; I give you all that is mine. I give you righteousness. I give you freedom.” “If any want to be my followers, let them come to the cross and be made free.” We have a God that colors outside the lines. God colors outside the lines because it is there, from the margins of the page, in all of the blank areas that you think are supposed to be blank - that salvation comes. It comes as a gift, better than you hoped for, better than you imagined, a life that does not end in death, but with an alle-…, first whispered under your breath and then shouted so loudly and with so much joy you nearly forgot that it was Lent.
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