September 3, 2023 Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost The text is Matthew 16: 21-28.

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²¹From that time on, [after Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah,] Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. ²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
 ²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
 ²⁷“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

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May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The very last thing Jesus said to his disciples last Sunday, right after renaming Simon as Peter the Rock upon which the church will be built, was that they were not to tell anyone that Jesus was the Messiah.

We read this morning, that after Peter’s acknowledgement that Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus begins to reveal what will be the ultimate conclusion of his earthly mission and ministry.  He must travel to Jerusalem and there the Jewish religious authorities will hand him over to the Romans to be tortured and executed; after his death on the cross he will rise again after three days.  Peter absolutely cannot handle this unbelievable information!  Don’t forget that standing there on the rocky outcropping at Caesarea Phillipi, just last Sunday, Simon Peter blurted out the correct answer to Jesus’ question of, “Who do YOU say that I am?”.  Peter had responded, “You are the Christ”, and this is how Matthew refers to the Messiah.  And now, just a short time later, Peter is forced to accept that everything that the Hebrew Scriptures foretold and that he believed about the nature and ultimate mission of the promised Messiah was not going to be fulfilled through this Jesus, the One who he just prior acknowledged as the savior of the Jewish people.  “God forbid it, Lord!”, he blurts out when Jesus tells him and the others that his time on earth is short, and that his fate awaits him in Jerusalem.

The Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah; all these are terms that represent the one who is prophesied to rise up as a triumphant warrior king, the one who will liberate the people from oppression and restore Israel’s freedom.  Peter and all the Hebrew people anticipated that their Messiah would be venerated and adorned with a crown.  Jesus has just, in no uncertain terms informed them, that instead he was to be humiliated and suffer a tortuous death on a cross.  Peter is having none of this!  There was no way that the Messiah could possibly be put to death as a disgraced criminal; after all, he is the Son of God and deserves all the glory that is due him.

Martin Luther expressed this dichotomy that Peter found so distasteful in his treatise comparing the two different theologies that Lutherans today still contend with.  Luther stated that there is a “Theology of Glory” which is diametrically opposed to a “Theology of the Cross”.  And this is precisely how Jesus rebukes Peter when Peter falls into the trap of a glory-based theology.

 Jesus tells Peter, “you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Jesus must accomplish all that his ministry requires, even if this conflicts with how we humans wish things would otherwise be.  It is necessary that Jesus’ earthly mission comes to a close on a cross; and his crown and the glory; these will come after, when Jesus rises and ascends to the heavenly realm.

A theology of glory emphasizes human things; talents, desires, and needs.  But living into a theology of the cross as the symbol of God’s grace and mercy; this is the only way to know who God is, and how God saves.  The cross that Jesus challenges us to take up and carry throughout our lives, as we walk along beside him and he beside us, is not a collection of burdens as some have come to believe.  “We all have a cross to bear”, we’ve all heard that old saying.  This has generally been accepted to mean the suffering that humanity must face in this life.  But rather, it serves as a symbol not of affliction, but of responsibility.  Of opportunity.  Of discipleship.  A reminder that, by it we accompany Jesus to and beyond his death, to his resurrection, and ultimately acceptance into God’s kingdom.  The crosses we ‘bear’ are reminders of the salvation, mercy, and love of God, as evidenced by Christ’s raising from beyond the cross he bore.

And while Peter struggled mightily with this revelation, those of us who know, 2,000 years later how the story ends and who have come to believe in the theology of the cross of Christ; well how do we respond to Jesus’ rebuke to set our minds on divine and not human things?  And how do we react to Jesus’ admonition to those who want to become his followers; namely us?  What does it really mean to “take up the cross”, as a symbol not of misery, but of discipleship?  At its core the cross is a reminder that we are not only to be witnesses to the life, mission, and ministry of Jesus.  Rather, we are called to be participants; actively involved in Christ’s mission, especially knowing that he has returned to the Father and it now becomes our calling to serve as his hands, and feet, and heart in the world.

We are called to work to ensure that all people may share in the abundant life that God wants for all God’s children.  To bring others into the kingdom, to acknowledge that the cross that leads to everlasting life is to be a symbol for everyone seeking new life in Christ.

Our “taking up of the cross” should be visible to others, our words and deeds ought to announce to those we encounter that we are Christ’s disciples.  When Peter rebuked Jesus and shared that Jesus should not follow his mission to completion, Jesus told Peter to get out of his way.  And this rebuke applies to us as well.  If our actions don’t reveal that we have adopted a theology of the cross, then like Peter, we mustn’t become a stumbling block to Jesus.  Difficult as it may be at times, we too have to set our minds on divine, and not human things; not on those things that reflect our humanness, but those that reveal Jesus’ divinity.  Paul writes to the church in Rome this morning, “Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are”.  Paul understands what Jesus meant when he proclaimed that those who choose to follow him must take up the cross; not of suffering, but of discipleship.  And true discipleship is expressed though imitation, by being determined to speak and act as Jesus did. 

This is at the core of what it means to follow Jesus, carrying the cross of our participation in the work that he began, and that we are instructed to continue.  Jesus chastises Peter for not understanding what must be done; he encourages him to not obstruct Jesus in his mission; he commands all his followers to take up the cross and imitate his life.  I imagine if this encounter were to take place today, that Jesus might speak in a more modern vernacular;  something along the lines of “get with the program!”  “Don’t stand in the way!”  “You know what needs to be done, so get to it!”  Jesus no longer has hands, or feet, or heart here in the earthy realm that he departed from.  As Christ-imitators it’s up to us to use our hands to lift the cross of Christ’s mission; to use our feet to carry us to wherever the gospel needs to be brought to those in need; to open our hearts so that all of God’s people might share in the abundant life that is God’s will for all.             

Will you pray with me?  Good, and gracious, and holy God, our prayer is simple; help us to imitate your Son’s way of life.  And we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, the One who calls us to a theology of the cross in this life, and who promises glory in the eternal one to come.

Amen  

God is Good, all the time.  All the time, God is Good.  Amen.