In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by the writer and theologian C.S. Lewis, four adventurous children discover a door in a wardrobe and step through into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter—but never Christmas—cursed by the power of the White Witch. Only Aslan, the Great Lion, can reverse her wicked spell.
Two of the children, Susan and Lucy ask two of the residents of Narnia, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver to describe Aslan, whom they have not yet met. Aslan, for the author, C.S. Lewis, represents Jesus.
They ask if Aslan is a man. Mr. Beaver replies. “Aslan a man? Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion — the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he — quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about being safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
In our reading from the Gospel of Mark, Peter and the other disciples are hearing for the first time that being a follower of Jesus will not be a “safe” occupation. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am.” Several names are offered, John the Baptist, Elijah, or another prophet.
But then Jesus looks at these men, and women, and asks, “But who do you say that I am.” It is here that Peter steps forward, as is his common role in the Gospel of Mark, and answers Jesus by saying, “You are the Messiah.” This is the first time we have heard Jesus referred to as “masiah” in Hebrew or cristos in Greek, both mean “the anointed one” since the beginning of Mark’s Gospel where he opens with the introduction that this is “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (1:1)
Peter’s proclamation is met with little response from Jesus except to tell him that he is to tell no one. And then Jesus goes on to teach that while he is the Messiah, he is a different kind of “anointed one” than Peter or his followers expect. Jesus is far from the powerful and worldly king that his followers and indeed all the people of Israel want him to be.
Instead he tells them that he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” It is hard for those of us sitting here in the United States in the 21st century to imagine the explosive nature of these words. It was the worst possible thing that Jesus could have said. His followers “hoped that he was the one” who would save them from their enemies, take away their suffering, and restore the kingdom of Israel. But instead they hear that the kingdom of God and the kingdom for which they long will not come about in the way they dreamed.
Jesus will follow the texts from Isaiah, the poems of the Suffering Servant that offer a totally different vision, not only of his mission, but to the very way Jesus understands life. In the kingdom of God, the values are not the same as those of this world.“You must lose your life for the sake of the gospel in order to save it. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. The marginalized, the poor, those who are seen as unclean and those who are rejected as “sinners” are called to play a fundamental role. And that demands a change of seeing and hearing: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” Jesus says to Peter in his strong reprimand.
And then the news gets even more serious. If they want to follow him, they too will have to take up the cross. As we have discussed before, falling on first century ears, the cross was not a metaphor. The cross was not about putting up with one’s circumstances in life such as a difficult job, the illness of a family member, or coming to the end of a relationship.
People who heard Jesus that day knew that a cross meant a horrible and shameful death. It was the kind of punishment that the Roman rulers used with regular and brutal force to let people know that if they plotted against their government this would be their fate. It was a startling statement. Those who follow Jesus must be ready to give it all away, to put their lives on the line in order to be faithful to Jesus and the Gospel. Jesus tells them: To save your life you must lose it. You may lose your lives for Jesus’ sake.
This is difficult to hear even at this distance. Does Jesus really mean that we must face death in order to follow him? For some of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, this is an unwarranted reality for them.
For us, I believe that it means three things. Listen to what Jesus tells those who were gathered. “If you want to become my followers you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
First denying ourselves does not mean to demean ourselves or try to achieve some form of forced humility. To deny ourselves we are not to punish ourselves or take on misery. It is to see ourselves in a totally different light.
We too often see ourselves as finite, isolated individuals separate from the world. We spend so much of our time protecting this little “self” in all its particular power, security, and esteem. It what St. Paul calls “the flesh.” He doesn’t mean our body; he means something much smaller that is contained in our body and is limited by our fears and those things that we long to possess.
But by clinging to the protection of this “little self” we can miss that we are a part of something infinite. We are members of the infinite Body of God who dwells in us and we in God. We are sustained not by the fierce guarding and preserving of our little lives, but by the “life-giving fountain of grace welling up within us to eternal life.”[1] To deny ourselves is to give up whatever keeps us from being fully present to God’s love and from loving fully. It is to let go of our self focused, fear based illusion of who we are and to whom we belong and instead open ourselves to becoming the infinitely alive and loving children of God that we are.
Jesus does not call us to take up our cross because suffering is good. Jesus did not go to the cross because he wanted to sacralize abuse or suffering. Jesus’s ministry set about to eradicate illness, oppression and misery. Jesus went to the cross because of the way he lived. He followed God refusing to be blinded by social and religious rules that he believed were not of God. He touched, ate with, reached out to people who were rejected (Mark 5:1-20), unclean (Mark 5:21-43) or marginalized (Mark 7:24-30). Mark has already talked about this kind of suffering in the arrest and death of John the Baptist because he spoke against the ruler Herod. Suffering that comes from standing with God is not the same as suffering for its own sake.[2]
When we choose to follow Jesus, we may face rejection, we may face maltreatment, we may even be called to walk to the very end, but this is because as Jesus tells us we can only save our life by rejecting the false life—the life that is only illusion. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: If we have nothing for which we are willing to die, then we have not lived.
We may live in a time where we are told that there are only winners and losers, that in order to win, someone else must lose, that there is never enough and the only things you can count on are those things you own. But Jesus challenges all of that by telling us that the only things that truly give you life, that will bring you joy, that the only things we can truly hold onto are those things that we give away: like love, mercy, kindness, compassion. Cross bearing is really about discovering that real and abundant life only comes through sacrificial love—giving ourselves away in love to others.
And the best news of all is that in denying our little self and taking up the cross of sacrificial love, we are following in the footsteps of the one who loved us to the cross and then beyond into new and everlasting life. Whatever denying oneself and taking up the cross means for each one of us—and it is different for each of us—it occurs at the same time as we embrace that Jesus is the one we follow. Instead of relying on ourselves or planning our next steps on our own, as followers of Jesus, we are led by the one who is our way, our truth and our life.
In our reading from Isaiah this morning, we hear repeated that the Lord God is ever present and always providing us with what we need. The most prominent feature of this reading is that God is always giving and we are always invited to receive. “The Lord God has given me…The Lord God has opened…The Lord God helps..The Lord God helps. The servant who is speaking continues to push the attention away from his efforts towards God. The work is the work of Yahweh. It is only in obedience and trust that the servant acts.[3]
In the words of Brother Geoffrey Tristam, “If ‘Where are you?’ are the most tragic words in Scripture, then ‘Here am I’ are the most hopeful.”[4]
Today we celebrate new beginnings. Some of our community has begun a new school year. It is a time of getting to know new people, new schedules, and learning about new expectations. Some of you are ready and excited some of you cannot believe that this new time is here. But whether you are ready or are feeling anxious and maybe even a little scared, it is a time to remember that you are never alone. That God who loved you into being, walks with you and holds you close.
And the people of this community of Grace Church also love you and walk with you and will stand with you as you celebrate your accomplishments and as you struggle on those days that don’t go so well. It can be a time of cross bearing—that is allowing our worries to rest in the love of God, to spend less time anxious about what you haven’t done and look toward what you have achieved, and rather than thinking about your own hurts look out for those around you who need a smile, a friend, someone who cares.
In the Gospel according to Mark, we hear of Jesus’ call to let go of all that captures us and prevents us from leading a life of abundance. We are not to be afraid, even of death, because we trust that with love and grace God will abundantly renew life in us. Following Jesus we take up our cross and join Jesus in loving without limit. In this way we joyfully respond to Jesus’ call to “Follow me.” We know that it is not safe, but we know that All the time, God is good!
[1] Steve Garnaas-Holmes. www.unfoldinglight.net
[2] Micah D Kiel. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2621
[3] Walter Brueggemann. Isaiah 40-66. Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox Press, 1998, 122.
[4] Br. Geoffrey Tristram. Here Am I, Lord http://ssje.org/ssje/2011/06/26/here-am-i-lord-br-geoffrey-tristram/