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“The son of man must be rejected by
everyone”—after reading our scripture for this morning about the rejected
Jesus, I began to look at some of the things modern churches say about
Jesus---I found a bunch of things about how great Jesus is—how comforting he
is, I found a bunch things about Jesus being awesome and cool—basically our
buddy Christ. That is how many churches
in our modern era of marketing our religion reject Jesus---by turning him into
something completely non-threatening, completely non-challenging—or they
simply reduce him to being nice to people. But as our gospel tells us this
morning, that’s not who Jesus was or is. The Christ challenges us, in fact
many of things that we consider to be normal or even good—these are things or
ways of living Jesus challenges---it’s as if we are looking at reality and
saying oh, that’s a 6 and the Christ comes along and says, no, you’ve got it
upside down and backward—that’s not a 6, that’s a 9. Maybe the modern church is
having trouble just being the church because it rejects the NT message of
Jesus in favor of fads and gimmicks. As we heard this morning, We are the
church when we pick up our crosses and follow Christ.
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When we reject that Christ, the one
that challenges us, the one that calls on us to pick up our cross—the one that
tells us there is no true spiritual growth without dying to life as you now
know it—we are, in fact, rejecting our own spiritual growth!
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Once again, Peter shows us how and
why we reject the Christ. After Jesus finishes telling his disciples that he
must suffer and die before he rises again, Peter rebukes him—says no, this cannot
happen. He’s not protecting Jesus, he’s protecting himself--Peter wants to
hold on to Jesus as he knows him now. Isn’t that pretty normal? Peter
thinks his experience of the Christ is something he can hold on to, something
he can accumulate, some thing he can possess like other things. He is
revealing his own self-protective motives—why else do we accumulate, possess, hold
on? With his self-protective ways He is betraying his own unwillingness to
suffer. Isn’t that why we hold on to our own image or idea of Jesus? To our own
perspective, our own conclusions, ideas? For security? Our culture worships self-protection, holding
on, accumulation, possessions—right from the start we develop, and hold on
to big selves. We’re told to sell ourselves—protect what’s ours. Isn’t that what the whole accumulative
process or holding on is all about—self-protection? It helps us
develop and stay in our comfort zone. A radical Christ who talks about
picking up our cross is rejected in favor of a more comfortable image of Jesus
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Jesus says to Peter, get behind me
Satan—SAWTAWN in Aramaic. Satan for Jesus just meant adversary—one who causes
us to go astray. Jesus is not saying Peter is literally Satan—but he is saying
that Peter’s holding on—his self-protective instinct is a problem in the
spiritual life. It tempts one to hold on to life as they know it—then there
can be no crucifixion—and therefore no resurrection---our own clinging
to life as we know it—our own self-protective clinging to security prevents our
own spiritual growth—prevents crucifixion and resurrection.
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Holding on to, accumulating,
possessing our static conclusions, ideas, ways, is setting our mind on human
things, not divine things---the divine life is about picking up our cross, the
divine life is about letting go. There is no true spiritual growth without
dying to life as we now know it—we must let go.
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Jesus says this clearly in all four
gospels—“If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take
up their cross”
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And again, “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.
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Look at verse 36—“For what will it
profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life” holding on to
life as you now know it, to all the ideas, conclusions, etc. that you have
accumulated---that is forfeiting your true spiritual life.
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It is Lent, are we following Christ? Are
we letting go? Are we letting go and taking up our cross as he did? We
cannot take up our cross while we are holding on to all we have accumulated, to
all our possessions. We can only take up our cross by letting go: “If any want
to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and
follow me”.
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There is no true spiritual growth
without dying to life as you now know it!
AMEN.
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