St. Matthew 16:21-28
Life is often interesting and very rarely is it boring. Sure, we go through each day and each week and we may do the same things day after day. In this sense, we may say that life is mundane or boring. But, if we really look at the landscape of things and we factor in the lives of our family, friends, and the world, rarely is life without comment. There is always something worth pondering and remarking. Oftentimes, I hear people speak about how time flies. The older wise people in our lives will declare with a warning to the young generation not to wish life away, for it goes by quickly enough. The older I get the more I see this to be true. We like things to move along. This means that things are going relatively well. For time to go like it does often means that we are busy living out our lives, and it sometimes suggests that things in our lives are going fairly well. We like it this way. Peter in the gospel was focused on things going according his good plan. Peter was with Jesus. He had just made the bold confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus was preaching, teaching, healing, and raising the dead. What could be better than to be in the midst of those things?! Peter had the benefit of not only witnessing these things, but he actually had the opportunity to be with Jesus. One can surmise that this was right where Peter had concluded that he wanted to be in life--with Jesus, hearing good preaching and “doing” ministry. But, when Jesus begins to speak of His passion--His suffering, death and resurrection--Peter’s reality conflicts with what is going to happen in his life. Jesus’ coming has with it a cross. This cross, while it may be good on some level in Peter’s mind, did not seem to fit with his life and contentment. One cannot help but think that Peter would have been content if he had just kept Jesus close and kept things as they were. He was happy that way. The cross didn’t fit well into the overall agenda of things for Peter. We actually suffer from this very thing. We like having Jesus with us. We like the preaching. We want to hear more from Jesus. If He could come down and do another earthly sojourn and we could sit fireside with Jesus all the time, that would be the life. We like it this way. What we don’t like is the reality of what springs from the cross of Jesus. Psalm 22 echoes the reality of the cross that Jesus would face and in verse 25 the psalmist echoes the substance of Jesus’ ministry: “My praise shall be of you in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear Him.” Jesus’ vow to be paid was His own sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world. We get this. We hear this preaching all the time, and we should or else we will forget the right order of our lives. We have to have the image of the crucifix placed before us for a few reasons. One reason the crucifix is in a prominent place for the church to see is the reason found in the gospel. It is the foundational preaching for a lost and dying world. It is the preaching that redeems from sin and brings us into a new life in Christ. Peter doesn’t want the crucifix in his life. It doesn’t jive well with his view of life. It gets in the way. Peter will learn why it had to be preached continually later. Peter trusted too much in himself and he had a deficient view of sin. But, Jesus gives another reason for the image of His passion: The church and the Christian have a cross that is to be picked up. Jesus says: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” We do not take up Christ’s cross of atonement. Only Jesus could take up that cross of the world’s sin. Our cross is similar, yet different. On the fundamental level our cross is the sacrament of holy baptism. It is a gift from Christ’s cross with a vow attached. It brings forth change to the recipient, but it brings a dynamic we do not often consider. We are to say no to sin. We are to live our lives for Jesus. We are to live humble, quiet lives of prayer, faith, and service. We are to love. Peter hints to something real and significant in the lives of the baptized: that through the great and precious promises (the gospel) we may become partakers of the divine nature. Holiness becomes us because of the cross taken up in baptism. This cross, however, can take us places we do not anticipate. This requires that we cling to the will of God for our lives--no matter what it may be. St. Paul talks about this cross: “that you put off concerning the former life of the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness”(Ephesians 4:22-24). Jesus’ preaching of His passion offended Peter because the vow of Jesus which is the sacrifice also gives meaning to Peter’s life. Sacrifices have to be made. Vows are taken when we become the Lord’s possession. Roads previously untraveled by us become our paths of journey. The crucifix not only informs the church of Christ’s love for the world but it gives meaning to the mission of the church. Just as the Lord gave up Himself, hiding His glory to die, so we too give up the old sinful Adam that loves sin in order to put on the new man, Jesus Christ and live new lives in Christ. This inner dynamic of the Christian is the part we often forget. We like the preaching. We want to hear Jesus, but the life of holiness that ensues from it is the tough part. Another part of Christ’s preaching that is difficult to hear, ironically, leads us back to the cross and its main purpose that Peter was soon to realize with his three-fold denial of Jesus. Before the gaze of Jesus all falsehood melts away. This encounter and life with Jesus, as it burns us, transforms and frees us and allows us to become truly ourselves. Self-reflection of our baptismal vows (the taking up of our cross to follow) often has the effect of showing us that all that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw and stubble. St. Paul reminds us that “every man’s work shall be made known: the fire shall try every person’s work”(1 Cor. 3). Paul continues by pointing out that that the gospel (the preaching which Peter did not want to hear) has the effect of God taking the wise man and making him a fool and the foolish man to become wise. When we are stripped of all our self-glory, when what he have built collapses before us, there stands Jesus in all His truth and goodness. Jesus comes through the smoke and, as we stand naked, Jesus swoops down and grabs us. The baptismal cross enables us to become truly ourselves so that we see Jesus as He really is--the one who saves us by His cross. The new life that we live in Christ is the life that is completely and utterly honest about who we are and who God is. God is the one who took on flesh, humbled Himself to be born of a virgin, shed His blood on the cross for all, in order to die and destroy death and rise again. Our lives are wrapped up in this where the mercy of Jesus abounds without end. “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the East is from the West, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us”(Psalm 103:11-12). -- Rev. Chad Kendall Trinity Lutheran Church Lowell, Indiana www.trinitylowell.org http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=243282012833
