MARCH 8, 2009  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen!

The text for today's meditation is the Gospel of the Day, from St. Mark chapter 8. There we read these words:

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Thus far the text.

Dear Christian friends,

In the Medieval church, worshippers during Lent and Holy Week were encouraged to participate in a practice that is still used in many places today. It is called the Via Dolorosa, or the Stations of the Cross. The pilgrimage to holy sites in Jerusalem was difficult, dangerous, and too expensive for most people. During wartime it was next to impossible. So, rather than traveling, worshipers would commemorate our Lord's journey to Jerusalem and death by following the Stations of the Cross, that is, visiting twelve or fourteen pieces of artwork sequenced around the sanctuary or the church grounds. Each piece would depict a stage of Christ's suffering: Christ is condemned by Pilate in the first scene; the cross is laid upon Him in the next; the third shows His first fall under the heavy load; and so on.

Praying the Stations of the Cross means that you walk the entire route, stopping at each piece of artwork to pray and to contemplate this particular scene's contribution to your salvation. You could even sing a Lenten hymn while moving from one station to the next.

It might not be a bad thing to install some stations around this sanctuary. Even if only a few people made a habit of moving from one piece to another as part of their devotional life, they would at least have regular reminders of what this room and its furnishings are truly all about.

You did not complete this building in 1952 so you could be another grand churchly presence in this community.

You did not add the education wing and the new entry so that you would be the biggest and best Church in all of northern Iowa either. You completed this building so the people of Mason City and its environs could...

..."know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death" (Philippians 3:10);

...so they could die with Christ in Baptism as the Scriptures teach it (Romans 6:4);

...so they could eat the Body "given for you" (Luke 22:19) and drink the Blood "poured out for you" (Luke 22:20).

As St. Paul insisted to the Corinthians, "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).

The Stations of the Cross are what Lent is all about. Today's Gospel shows you that. "Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things. that He must be killed and after three days rise again."

Of course, no one really wants a good and innocent man like Jesus to suffer in what seems like an unjust way. St. Peter's impulsive rebuke for such crazy-talk crawls under the skin of everyone who loves Jesus. Probably the only thing that kept the others quiet was Jesus' harsh, "Get behind Me, Satan!"

This suffering is inevitable. The word "must" in today's Gospel indicates a divine imperative, ordained before the foundation of the world. The cup cannot, will not, be taken from Him. Through each station of His humiliation, torture, crucifixion and death Jesus must go.

And St. Peter must watch. This is his cross. He must travel the Via Dolorosa suffering the horrible fate of watching his beloved Jesus suffer. So must you. You watched last week while the Spirit ruthlessly drove Jesus into the desert like an unwanted dog. Next week you will hear Jesus' prophecy, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days" (John 2:19);

The week after that you will hear, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up" (John 3:14). Soon the arrest, soon the merciless blows of the Roman guard, soon the hammer and the nails and the "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:34) None of you can do anything about it. You can only watch. This is Lent.

Knowing the benefits that this death brings to you, would you stop it even if you could? Here is the trail that leads to your forgiveness. His is the blood that is shed for your eternal life. "The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him" (Isaiah 53:5). "The blood of Jesus. purifies us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

My friends, I would urge you not to be too hard on St. Peter. No one who truly loves another will desire to see that other person suffer in any way. Likely, you would do whatever you can to prevent, or at least alleviate, such suffering, wouldn’t you?

Parents do not want their children to experience the same sort of deprivations they experienced in childhood. Rather, they naturally want their offspring to be better off than they were.

No one happily watches someone close endure a major illness or disease. Countless prayers have been prayed by wives, husbands and parents, asking or offering to trade places with the one who must now face cancer, major surgery, or painful rehabilitation.

But you must allow your loved ones to bear their crosses, as surely as St. Peter must allow Jesus to bear His. You must stand passively by, watching and praying, while they endure that which God sees fit to allow them to endure. "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me and for the Gospel will save it."

Do you dare to rob your loved ones and your neighbors of the divine benefits promised in these words? Shall you so carefully shield your children, your parents, your friends that they never experience the cross of which Jesus speaks? If you refuse them their crosses, you might also end up establishing roadblocks to their eternal life.

The Scriptures make it clear that each of you are to live as Christ to your neighbor. "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (John 13:14, 34). "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first" (John 15:18).

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8).

"Carry each others burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).

Jesus. You cannot spare them their crosses. You can walk with them through their divinely ordained stations, you can cry out to God on their behalf at every step along the way, and you can wait with them for the blessings of the resurrection.

But, you cannot take their crosses from them. Even if you could, it probably would not be in their best interests, and they would wisely say to you, "Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men."

Wouldn't it be great if you could spare your husbands or wives the surgeries or therapies they must undergo? Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could sweep your children into your arms when you see them grapple with the issues of their own sin and forgiveness, telling them that it is all okay and coddling them into thinking that they do not need to face such labors?

What a blessing it would be to snap your fingers and rob your beloved of their addictions, their temptations, their crosses. But would it truly be a wonder and a blessing? Such is what St. Peter wanted for Jesus. You heard how Jesus responded.

This is Lent, dear friends. The Via Dolorosa, the Stations of the Cross, walks with Jesus toward that which is inevitable for your forgiveness, life and salvation. The Via Dolorosa includes each one of you, for each of you likewise must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow where Jesus leads. So also must those whom you love the most.

"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."

It is necessary. It is unavoidable and inescapable. You dare not rob your children, your families, or any else of their heaven-sent place in the sufferings of Christ. There are no other options. Like St. Peter, your helplessness must be admitted and embraced. Yet while the road may darken before you and your loved ones, the bright light of new life awaits just over the horizon.  

Because Christ Is Risen.

AMEN