What Does It Mean to "Take Up Our Crosses"?

[I was happy to preach on February 25, 2024 at Saint Peter Lutheran Church in Walburg, Texas.]

Mark 8:31-38

In a community where we once lived, a judge put together a committee of about twenty people. It was charged with creating strategies to prevent drug abuse among local teens. When the committee first met, the judge asked everyone to introduce themselves and to give their theory of why so many kids were involved with drugs.

Each person gave a theory. The answers included low self-esteem, poverty, academic difficulties, peer pressure, mental health, and parental abuse. With each theory, there were affirming nods all around. The last person to speak was Clarence. Clarence headed a program that helped youth get off drugs. He himself was an addict in recovery. “I’ve seen all of the issues that have been mentioned as factors,” he said. “But, in the end, I think addiction is a spiritual problem. People turn to drug and alcohol abuse to find the life and hope only found in Christ.” 

I was in the room where that happened. I wanted to applaud Clarence. But I saw no approving nods and heard no affirming words. There was silence.

I think there was one major reason for that silence. 

People there didn’t want to hear that the answers to any problem they faced, at least in their professional lives, was beyond their competence, their understanding, their effort. They didn’t want to hear that the basic problem for all of us, is our inborn impulse to be our own gods, to sin. 

They also didn’t want to hear that the only One Who can free us from our sin and the death and problems that come from it is Jesus, God the Son. 

It’s only through the grace of God given to us through the crucified and risen Jesus and the faith in Jesus we receive through God’s Word and the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion, that we are given the life and wholeness we crave.

Jesus is the One Who gives us the ability to face this life and the next life in the certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

But like the people on that community committee, we Christians don’t always like to hear any of that. Even the resurrection part. 

Neither, it turns out, did the apostle Peter. 

Just before the incident recounted in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He was. Peter said, “You are the Christ.” (Mark 8:29) 

It’s the right answer. But as we learn in today’s lesson, Peter had no idea what his answer meant. 

This is why Mark says Jesus started to clarify things for Peter and for us. Mark writes: “And [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31)

Wait a minute, the disciples must have thought: The Christ, the Messiah, God’s anointed, is supposed to be a king who conquers and makes everything right. What’s this about the Messiah suffering, being rejected, and being killed?

But the difference between the disciples’ expectations of a triumphant Messiah and Jesus’ prediction of His own suffering, rejection, and murder isn’t the only reason for what happens next. 

Mark says: “...Peter took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke him.” (Mark 8:32) Peter knew what Jesus was getting at when Jesus said that the Son of Man was going to be killed. God had said of the Messiah through Isaiah centuries earlier, “he was crushed for our iniquities.” (Isaiah 53:5) But Peter couldn’t accept that he was so lost in his sin–in his failure to love God and love neighbor–that he, like the rest of us, needed the Messiah to save him by the good news–the gospel–of Christ’s death and resurrection for sinners. It’s fairly easy for us to accept that Christ died for sinners, isn’t it? But it’s harder to accept that we’re among the sinners that need saving! 

God’s Word is unambiguous though: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

After Peter rebuked Him, Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan! [Jesus knew that the self-righteous words coming from Peter’s mouth were coming from Satan, echoing the words of Satan to Jesus in the wilderness when he tried to tempt the Savior not to go to the cross to save us.] [“Get behind me, Satan”] For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Mark 8:33) Then Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35) And then this: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) Take all the power, prestige, money, and advantages of this world into your hands and it will all still one day crumble to ashes, as surely as you and I will in our graves or in our urns.

But the story of both this life and the one to come ends differently for those who take up their crosses and follow Jesus. 

To take up our cross means two things, I think. 

First, it means, to acknowledge our sins, to take the cross Jesus bore for us as our rightful condemnation. Our sin put Jesus on the cross. 

Second, taking up our cross means speaking plainly that Jesus is our Lord, to confess His Gospel. 

When Jesus spoke the Gospel, the good news, that He was dying and rising, to save the sinners of the world, it led to His crucifixion by first-centuries Jews and Gentiles, who were no more anxious than the rest of us to admit their sin was so bad they needed the Messiah to die and rise to make them (and us) fit for life with God, righteous. 

Whenever we confess Jesus is Lord, we will encounter things like stony silence, rejection, or, as happens to Christians all over the world even today, death. Suffering for our faith in Jesus in this world is as much a part of being a Christian as living in the confidence of the resurrection. So, Jesus says elsewhere: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Jesus warns that when we lack the humility to acknowledge our sin or confess Him as “the way, and the truth, and the life,” there will be consequences in eternity. (John 14:6) If we refuse the shelter of His grace and forgiveness, our sin will be our eternal undoing. Jesus says: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38) 

The corollary to that, of course, is that as, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in God’s Word, we are empowered to take up our crosses and follow Jesus–living our faith in Jesus in plain view, Jesus tells God the Father, “This is My child for all eternity!”

Friends, God’s Law says that we deserve death. 

But the Gospel of Christ gives us life we don’t deserve and could never earn. By grace–God’s charitable and unearned forgiveness given in Christ–we are saved through God’s gift to us of faith in Jesus. 

The gospel tells you even today that in Christ, all your sins are forgiven and you have everlasting life with God, so that you may believe, even on your worst day on earth, this is true. 

When all your strength and all the people and things of this world fail you, even at the moment death comes to you, you can trust in Christ and the saving work He already accomplished for you when He said from the cross, “It is finished!” 

The promise of the risen and ascended to Jesus to the first-century church at Smyrna is the same promise He makes to you this morning, at this moment: “Be faithful [–keep repenting, keep trusting, keep taking up your cross, keep following Me–] unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10) Amen

Don't Fear, Follow Christ No Matter What

[Below is the message shared during both worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. 

[We were joined by Claire Brown Kriel during the announcements at the beginning of both services. Claire and her husband Shaun were with us to share updated information on the ministry Claire founded and directs in South Africa, Lydia's Mission. Living Water is happy to be partnered with Lydia's Mission, which empowers women to move out of poverty and also provides ministry to children and to the elderly. 

[If you watch the video of the 8:45 AM service, you'll note that I flubbed-up the opening of the sermon...but God is gracious!]

Matthew 10:5a, 21-33

As Christians, we take comfort from the promises of God found in places like the last verse of our second lesson for today: “​​For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Not everyone finds comfort in God’s promises though. To be told that Jesus says, “Whoever believes in [Jesus, God the Son] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son,” arouses their anger. (John 3:17) They get angry too when they hear Jesus claim, “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

You see, we all are born under the condemnation of the Law. The Law is, essentially, the moral law of God as given to us in the Ten Commandments which Jesus summarizes in the Great Commandment: Love God and love neighbor.

Apart from faith in Jesus and the power of His death and resurrection to save us from sin and its result, death, we human beings, incapable of perfectly obeying God’s Law, are condemned for all eternity.

People have all sorts of reactions to hearing that they live under condemnation by God’s Law.

Some deny the existence of God or of things like right and wrong. These folks try to wriggle out of responsibility for their actions when confronted with God’s will by telling Christians, “That’s your truth.” But there is only one truth. Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)

Other people live in self-righteousness, convinced they are decent, righteous people whose every second is lived above reproach. A prominent Baptist theologian told of the student who, beaming, told him after class one day that it had been three years since he had been tempted to sin. The theologian told him, “That’s about the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” For the student to have been unconscious of temptation may have meant that he was so deeply mired in self-righteousness that he was insensitive to the constant temptations presented to God’s people by the devil, the world, or our sinful selves.

Other people live in constant fear of God’s condemnation. They think their salvation depends on them being perfect moral beings. Every time they become conscious of their sins, they think that until they make things right, they’re damned for all eternity. Many of these people give in to despair and give up on having life with God.

All of these folks–and you and I who are prone to falling into precisely these patterns of thinking at different times in our lives, first of all need to hear–really hear–God’s Law.

The Bible tells us that we were born in sin (Psalm 51:5) and “were by nature deserving of wrath” from the moment of our conception (Ephesians 2:3).

Lest we try to evade this truth about ourselves, we also need to hear what sin is spelled out for us.

We sin when we worship God’s creatures rather than God the Creator; when we dishonor our parents or those in authority; when we murder in thought as well as deed; when we use God’s gift of sex outside the bounds of heterosexual marriage; when we speak falsely or uncharitably of others; when we swipe what’s not ours; or when we covet what others have.

We need to hear this Law to remind us of the distance we are, by our natural inborn inclinations, from God and from life with God.

We all also need to hear the Gospel.

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus, Who died and rose to set you from sin and death, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)

We need to hear Jesus tell us again this morning: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

We need the Word of God for us again this morning: “...a person is justified by faith [in Jesus] apart from the works of the law.” (Romans 3:28)

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus sends the twelve apostles out to share His Word with the people of Israel.

Their mission foreshadows the mission that you and I have, to make disciples of all nations.

Jesus says that not everyone will want to receive God’s Word, Law or Gospel. The message of Christ to repent and believe in Him always arouses opposition.

“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death,” Jesus warns. “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but [then He promises] the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:21-22)

But, how do we stand firm in our faith in the face of opposition? Jesus goes on to tell us how in our lesson.

First, Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid of [those who come after you for following Him], for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.” (Matthew 10:26-27)

In the past few weeks alone, I’ve been called “a tool” and judgmental by different people when I’ve tried to share God’s Word in love with them.

But friends, we need not fear Christ’s opponents! The plans God has revealed to those who listen to His Word, will one day be revealed to all. Christ will return. Then death and everything that intimidates us in this world will die.

What we see today by faith through the power of God’s Word--that Christ has triumphed over sin and death, and that all who trust in Him live with God now and forever--will only then, on His return, be seen by those who reject Christ today. We take comfort from knowing that even now, we live in Christ’s eternity and we belong to Him!

Second, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

Don’t be afraid of the world, Jesus says. The most it can do is kill us.

Instead, we should have a holy fear of God, the One Who can condemn people to hell.

When we die, our bodies and souls are separated. Our bodies decay in this world, but the souls of those who trust in Jesus will rest in His presence until the Day of Jesus’ return.

Meanwhile, the souls of those who refuse to trust in Jesus will be in torment.

On the day Jesus returns to this world and establishes the new heaven and the new earth, our bodies will be raised and gathered again with our souls.

Those who have refused Jesus will be sent to eternal condemnation.

But those who trust in Jesus will hear Him say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34)

Those who trust in Christ know that nothing “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39)

Finally, Jesus says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31)

If you follow Jesus, you will encounter opposition, ridicule, maybe even persecution or death. But Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5) Jesus says elsewhere, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

As, by the power of the Gospel at work in the Word and the Sacraments, you turn to Christ in daily repentance and faith, you live in the certainty that your sins are forgiven and you belong to God forever!

At the end of our lesson today, Jesus tells us, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33)

Friends, I love telling you what God has called me to tell you: In Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven and your eternity with God is secured.

Acknowledge Jesus as your Savior and Lord by turning to Him each day for the forgiveness of your sin and for life with God.

No matter what this world may say about you, think about you, or do to you, you can trust in Christ to be Your Savior for all eternity.

Amen

When Bad Things Happen

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during worship on Sunday, March 24, 2019.]

Luke 13:1-9

Why do bad things happen to people? 

We ask this question, in many different ways. The main reason we ask it, it seems, is because we want the world to make sense. 

Often though, it just doesn’t. 

Marriages end. 

Spouses and children die. 

Tragedies occur. 

And we wonder why.

This question seems to be on the minds of people who approach Jesus in today’s gospel lesson, Luke 13:1-9. Let’s look at it together. 

Verse 1: “Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.”  

Apparently, pious, believing people from Galilee, the region where Jesus grew up, had been offering sacrifices to God at the temple when Pilate set Roman soldiers on them, murdering them and, showing added disrespect to the Jews, polluting their sacrifices by mingling the blood of the worshipers with them. 

We have no record outside of the New Testament of this particular incident. But we do have independent records of Pilate doing equally awful things. Pilate was a well-documented thug.

The unspoken question of Jesus’ interlocutors here, of course, is, “Why?” 

Now, it’s possible as you read their words to Jesus to think that they wondered how an omnipotent and loving God could allow worshipers to be killed in the Lord’s house. But, it’s apparent from Jesus’ reply to them that He reads their question differently. He sees that they already had their own explanation for what happened to the murdered Galileans and were there just to get Jesus to agree with them. 

He doesn’t

Verse 2: “Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’”

The unspoken assumption of the people who approach Jesus is that, somehow, the Galileans murdered in the temple deserved to die. And mentioning what must have been another bit of recent news, Jesus says that eighteen people who had been killed by the collapse of a tower built into Jerusalem’s city walls didn't deserve their tragic deaths either.

As we read this passage, we may be horrified by the suggestion that the victims of these tragedies and the family members who mourned for them deserved these horrors. 

But don’t we hear people say similar things in the face of tragedy that befalls people today? 

Don't we, sometimes, looking for a rational explanation of irrational events, say such things ourselves?

When Alabama was hit with flooding recently, some claimed that it was God’s punishment for voting for Trump in 2016.

Back when much of California was ablaze with fires, some people on Twitter claimed it was  God’s punishment for filthy movies that came from California.

Ideas like these appeal to human ego because they say that if we’re doing the right things in life, nothing bad will touch us and that if bad things like these happen to other people, it must mean that they’re not good people like us, not right with God like us.

But, as disciples of Jesus, we know that we are, every single one of us, and that, at best, Christians can only claim to be sinners saved from sin and death not by how good we are, because we could never be good enough to be counted righteous, but only because of what God has done for us through the crucified and risen Jesus and through the faith in Jesus that has been set in us, not through our effort, but by the Holy Spirit. 

In Jesus, true God and true man, we have a Savior Who endured poverty, pain, and death even though He was sinless and deserved none of the bad that happened to Him. Do we want to say that Jesus deserved the horrors that befell Him? 

I hope not! On the cross, Jesus got what we deserved and what we deserve! 

As God’s Word teaches, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).” God doesn’t give human beings the punishment we all deserve, but eternal punishment comes to those who choose to follow sin rather than Christ.

Bad things happen in this world simply because we live in a fallen, imperfect creation that is haywire with sin and death. 

Jesus says that God the Father “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).” God isn’t out to get anyone. 

And Jesus tells those who follow Him, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (John 16:33).”  God loves us and He makes all baptized believers in Jesus part of His new and eternal creation, but as long as we live in this old creation, every one of us is subject to its difficulty, pain, and death. 

Thugs will order soldiers to kill worshipers. 

Towers will fall on people standing in the wrong place. 

Wildfires will rage in wooded areas. 

Floods will come to coastlands and river valleys. 

There may be things we can (and should) do to prevent some tragedies, but the possibility of tragedy is baked into the cake of a creation groaning under the weight of sin and death.

And so, the first question we need to ask in the face of the tragedies that befall others or could befall us at any moment in our lives isn’t why. It’s what am I going to do about it? What will we do once we come to terms with the reality of our mortality and susceptibility to tragedy? 

Jesus has already told us how we should respond to that question twice in our lesson. He says, “unless you repent, you too will all perish” and, again, “unless you repent, you too will all perish.” 

In other words, don’t make judgments about others that make you feel superior; focus instead on daily seeking the forgiveness and new life that God offers us through Jesus. 

Daily repent: turn each day away from sin and turn each day to Jesus. 

We might take as our model the man in Jesus’ parable who prays, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner (Luke 18:13)!” God will renew us in His charitable, forgiving love, when we offer up prayers like that. 

In Psalm 51 in which David confesses his sins to God, he also confesses his faith in God’s receptivity to the repentant: “...a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise (Psalm 51:17).”

In our gospel lesson, Jesus underscores His call for us to daily repent, to turn to Him and live with God as part of His renewed people, in a parable. Verse 6: ““A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

Here, Jesus tells the story of a fig tree that deserves to die. A fig tree that doesn’t produce fruit is only taking up space, just as a disciple who knows Jesus, but never repents or seeks to follow Jesus is taking up space. 

So, the owner of the fig tree orders that it be cut down. 

But the caretaker asks that the owner let him spend a year trenching around the fig tree to ensure that it gets plenty of water and putting lots of fertilizer on it, just as God showers us with grace so that we can know Jesus, grow in Jesus, and show Jesus to others. So that we can bear the fruit of a life filled with Jesus. 

God’s intention for us when He claims us in Holy Baptism, feeds us on His Word, gives us Holy Communion, and places us in the fellowship of the Church is clear: As long as we live in this earth, whether a long time or a short time, God means to fill us with and means for us to share with others, the life that only comes to those who trust Jesus Christ! 

Our lives are meant to be displays on which God daily writes the message for all the world to see: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).”

A moment ago, I said that the first question we need to ask in the face of life’s tragedies is not why, but what am I going to do about it? Am I going to turn to Christ and live? 

I think that in the parable, Jesus suggests a second question, the answer to which, when I remember it, sustains me and encourages me with hope in an often hopeless world. It’s this: Why me? Not “why me” as in why is bad stuff happening to me, but “why me” as in why am I still around? Why is God still pouring His grace on me?

When I suffered a heart attack nine years ago, it was the "widow maker": a 100% blockage of the left anterior descending artery that often leads to sudden death in its victims. More than two weeks after the cardiac event, a cardiologist was able to push a stent through the blockage.* Later, during my overnight stay at the hospital, the night duty nurse entered my room. She'd looked at my chart. "You're lucky to be alive," she told me. "God must have plans for you."

I'm convinced that God has plans for you too! That's why you're still drawing breath on this planet.
I can’t explain why tragedies befall some people and not others. I don’t know. 

But I do know this: God keeps us around until further notice because He wants us to let the world know about the new and everlasting life all people can have through faith in Jesus Christ. 

The apostle Peter writes to we Christians in one of his New Testament letters (this translation is from The Message): “...you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference [Christ] made for you (1 Peter 2:9-10, The Message).”

The victims of tragedy in this world don’t need misinformed “Christians” piling on, telling them that their pain is punishment from God. Our call is to share Jesus. Our call is to live for Jesus, Who lived, died, and rose for us and for those who don't yet know Him. 

May God help us to do just that. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

*Why this happened two weeks after the heart attack is another story too long to go into here. But the fact that I survived after losing 40% of my heart function and still having 100% blockage in a critical artery is something which both I and my cardiologist regarded as miraculous. And that's not a term I throw around lightly.