This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father,
and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our Gospel reading today is a
particularly wonderful passage where Jesus teaches us what it means to be one
of his disciples. The conversation in our reading today between Jesus and the disciples
comes between two very important events, both of which we have read in church
recently. Just before this reading, we have the passage where Jesus asks his
disciples: Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And also he says: Who
do you say that I am? And Peter says: You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God. We learn from this passage that Jesus, the Son of Man, is the
Son of God. Jesus praises and commends Peter, and says to him that the church
will be built on this rock, this confession of faith that he has
made. He also says to Peter: Flesh and blood have not revealed this you but
my Father who is in heaven. What Peter had said to Jesus was not something
that was the product of his own thinking and his own heart, but
was shaped and formed and inspired by God the Father himself.
Now immediately after our
reading today comes the Transfiguration, where Jesus stood on the top of the
mountain with Moses and Elijah, and his face and clothes shone with wonderful,
brilliant light. So our reading today is sandwiched between these two amazing
conversations: a conversation between Jesus and Peter about who Jesus is, and a
conversation between Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the mountain.
Today’s reading begins where
it says: [Jesus] began to teach [his disciples] that the Son of God
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. In an amazing
way, Jesus shows us here that he is both true man and true God.
Jesus demonstrates that he is a real human being, by telling his disciples how
he will truly suffer, and truly be killed. Jesus will actually feel
these things and endure them and go through it all. However,
Jesus is also true God, and he knows exactly what is going to happen to
him in advance, and that he will miraculously rise from the dead with all of
his divine power.
So what is it that Jesus prophesies
here and predicts and foretells is going to happen to him? He
says: he will suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. This almost sounds like the Apostles’ Creed where we say that Jesus suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell.
On the third day, he rose again from the dead. We recite these things and learn
them and speak about them regularly in the creed because they are of the utmost
importance. So Jesus predicts and prophesies his sacrifice, his atonement and
payment for your sins, his death and resurrection for your salvation, and puts
these things right at the front of his and his disciples’ minds. It is of the
utmost importance, and this is why he came.
Jesus also prophesies which
people will reject him: the elders
and the chief priests and the scribes. These three groups of people are
significant: the elders are Jewish leaders, known and chosen for
their wisdom. The priests were appointed to make sacrifices
in the temple. The scribes were the scholars, the bible-experts.
And yet, Jesus prophesies that despite all of their learning, righteousness and
wisdom, they will not tolerate Jesus, but will reject him and kill him. You
see, Jesus is our Wisdom, he is our sacrifice and our high priest, and he is
the Word of God who speaks living words from God, and he brings all the wisdom
of the elders, all the sacrifices of the priests and all the learning and
scholarship of the scribes to nothing.
But then Peter jumps in and
we read: Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. He says: Far
be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you. Even Peter doesn’t
understand. He thinks: If Jesus is the Son of God, he can’t be rejected! He
can’t suffer, and be killed, and die, and be buried! It seems like a
contradiction to him, and so he goes and tells Jesus off about it.
Now sometimes we carry on in
much the same way. In our church, we believe that the Scripture doesn’t have
any mistakes in it. In our congregation and our parish constitution, and at a
pastor’s ordination, we confess that the bible is “inerrant”, meaning “without
errors”. If the church makes a faithful
confession and follows the Scripture and confesses the truth, then the church
also will teach no errors. Paul wrote to Titus that God never lies.
It should be our primary goal and our greatest desire to learn the truth,
because when we go against the truth of God’s Word, we go against God himself.
Jesus said to his Father: Sanctify them in the truth, Lord; your word is
truth. St Paul tells us to: speak the truth in love. And he also
says: Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Now
when we find something in the Scripture that we don’t like or understand or
agree with, we often go to Jesus and tell him off. We say: Don’t be so silly,
Jesus. Don’t talk such rubbish!
So when Peter tells Jesus
off, what does Jesus say? Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your
mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. Amazing! Peter thinks
that if Jesus is the Son of God, he can’t suffer and die. But this is just empty
human logic. Jesus had just commended Peter when he had spoke the truth and
said: You are the Son of the living God. Now Jesus tells his disciples
why he has come: to suffer and die for your sins, and to rise and destroy
death. And Peter rejects this. Jesus says: Get behind me, Satan! Jesus
says: Before when you spoke the truth, God spoke through you. Now you speak
lies, and it is Satan who is speaking.
Sometimes Satan leads people
into wrong. Satan knows that when Jesus suffers, dies and rises, Jesus will
destroy all of Satan’s power. Not long before he was arrested, Jesus had said: Now
will the ruler of this world be cast out. And so Satan leads Peter into
speaking error, and he doesn’t want Peter to understand the great power of what
Jesus says. And yet, as soon as Peter says this, Jesus does him a great favour,
and tells him exactly where his sinful, human thinking came from. It was from
Satan. Satan has a friend and an ally in our sinful hearts, and can easily mislead
us into error. Martin Luther said it very sharply: Every one of us by
himself is a devil, but in Christ we are holy. Jesus speaks truth, Satan
speaks lies.
Now sometimes people say that
the devil made them do something. And it’s true that the devil does lead us
into temptation. But sometimes people mean it in such a way that their sin wasn’t
really their fault. Sometimes we laugh at Adam and Eve, and say that they
didn’t take responsibility for their actions. “The woman made me do it!” “The
snake made me do it!” But this is not what Adam and Eve said. Eve said: The
serpent deceived me, and I ate. Satan did something, but also I did
wrong, it was completely my fault. So, in Genesis chapter 3, when God deals
with Adam and Eve, he kicks the devil first, and promises that his head will be
crushed. Then he deals with Eve and with Adam.
And so, let’s remember here
Jesus’ wonderful prayer for his disciples and also for us: Sanctify them in
the truth, Lord; your word is truth. The truth actually makes us holy.
Today many people will say that there’s no such thing as truth, and that it’s arrogant
to say that what we speak is truth. People say: “What’s true for you isn’t true
for me!” Remember what Pontius Pilate said to Jesus when he put him on trial.
He scoffed and said, “What is truth?” It’s not arrogant, but it’s a precious
and humble thing when you find the truth that you believe it! What if the merchant
who found the pearl of great price would have looked at the pearls and said:
“These pearls don’t exist!” Or if the someone found hidden treasure and said,
“There’s no such thing as gold!” Truth exists, Jesus speaks it, it is a
precious thing.
Jesus says: Sanctify them
in the truth, Lord; your word is truth. Jesus says: I am the way, the
truth, and the life; no-one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is
the truth, the words he speaks are truth, and he will make us holy and sanctify
us with the truth. St Paul wrote to Timothy that the church is a
pillar and buttress of the truth. A church with no truth is no church. A
church that cares nothing for God’s word and for the truth, stands on sinking
sand. And we need to be willing to fight for the truth, so that people who are
looking for the truth can find it.
Now, we come to the next part
of our reading: And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, [Jesus] said
to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me.” Jesus teaches
us many wonderful things, especially the gospel, which is the good news
that Jesus has won salvation for us. But before we can hear the Gospel, Jesus
teaches God’s law, his commandments, his expectations, his standard, his
word of judgment against sin. The bible teaches that people don’t just do bad
things every now and then, but, we read in Genesis 6, that every intention
of the thoughts of [our] heart [is] only evil continually. This means that
sin taints everything completely. Only God can see the difference between you
and your sin, and when you die, he will remove your sin from you. But before
that, sin taints everything and we need the word of God for us even to recognise
it.
And so, Jesus teaches us: If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. Jesus teaches us to deny
ourselves not because this denial earns our salvation. Jesus already won our
salvation for us by denying himself. He prayed to his Father: If it
be possible, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will, but your will be
done.
However, the Christian life
is marked by self-denial. The way to heaven is not through the wide gate, the
easy way. Jesus says: For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads
to life, and those who find it are few. Jesus doesn’t teach us this to
scare us off, but to warn us. Many times, we will read in the word and hear in
the bible something that we then only learn later in our day to day life. And
Jesus teaches us here, that “this obstacle along the way does not mean that you
should run away from me, but it is an invitation for you to trust me”. And
Jesus knows the way, and he will not let you go. As we learn Jesus’ word more
and more, we learn to say like John the Baptist: He must increase, but I
must decrease.
Jesus says: If anyone
would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Our
Christian life is a life of self-sacrifice. Just as Jesus prophesied that he
would suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again, so also Christians in
this life many times will be called to suffer, and be rejected by people, even
be killed. But then like Jesus, we will rise with him. We will not be
abandoned. But Jesus doesn’t call us to carry his cross, but our own
cross. The cross Jesus calls us to bear is just a little one in comparison. We
are not dying for the sin of the world. We are just walking with Jesus, and
learning from him the depth of the world’s sin and the even greater depth of
his victory over it.
Many Christians today don’t
like this kind of talk. Often we just want glitz and glamour. There are plenty
of preachers and tele-evangelists who will tell you that your best life is now,
and that God’s desire for you is to be healthy, wealthy, rich and influential.
Some Christians tell sick people that if they’re not healthy, or if they’re
about to die, it’s because their faith isn’t strong enough. Or sometimes people
think that because Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus’ death doesn’t matter, and
that it’s just nothing. They make Christianity into a little cabaret show, or a
bit of light entertainment. All of this is just people doing everything they
can to avoid denying themselves and taking up their cross. They think they’re
following Jesus, but they delude themselves.
Instead, Jesus says: Whoever
would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and
the gospel’s will save it. The gospel, and everything that is true and
good, must be protected and secured at all costs. Even if it costs us
everything, the glory of the world is nothing by comparison. Better to have
nothing and have Jesus, because when we have Jesus we have everything in heaven
and earth. And we also learn here that whatever we give will not be in vain.
Jesus will repay everything. If only we trusted him not to let us be lacking in
anything. If we want to keep our life and compromise our faith, we will lose
everything. Jesus will never let us down!
Jesus says in our reading: What
does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can
a man give in return for his soul? Jesus puts our soul on one side of the
balance, and the world on the other. Jesus has bought you with the price of his
blood. Your soul was purchased with such great a price, and it was purchased by
such a faithful Saviour. St Paul writes: Jesus died for all, that those who
live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died
and was raised. He also teaches: Love does not insist on its own way. Why
would we want our own way, if Jesus has given us his way?
In the last part of our
reading, 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. On one hand,
we have Jesus and his words. On the other hand, we have this adulterous and
sinful generation. Where would you rather be? On which side of the fence do
you want to stand? Would you tell Jesus off, to stop talking such things, just
so that you can appear more palatable to people around you? Are you afraid of
being rejected by people, even though you know that Jesus’ words are
holy, and they are an adulterous and sinful generation?
And yet, on the other hand,
we learn a wonderful, amazing thing from this passage. In the end, Jesus will
return. Just as Peter and James and John saw Jesus on the top of the mountain
with his face glowing with bright, white light, and his clothes shining through
the night, Jesus will return one day, and bring this troubled world to an end.
Jesus says: They shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven
with power and majesty and great glory. When Stephen the martyr was being
stoned to death, we read that he looked into heaven and saw Jesus standing
at the right hand of God. He will come again, and rescue you, and save you,
who in all your weakness and all your sin have clung to him and his word, the
word that speaks to you a promise from heaven itself: Your sins are
forgiven. Today you will be with me in Paradise. And he will repay you for
every loss that you have suffered, every hardship you have endured, and every
cross that you have had to carry. This is the wonderful thing that we have to
look forward to.
We know that in this life, we
are nothing, we have nothing, and we can do nothing, but we have a Saviour, who
is everything, who has everything, and can do everything. And no matter what
valley of the shadow of death we walk through, no matter what cross we have to
carry, Jesus will never let us down. He is our faithful Saviour: and just as he
prophesied, he has suffered, he has been rejected by the elders, the priests
and the scribes, he has been killed, and on the third day he rose again.
Amen.
Heavenly Father, sanctify us
in the truth; your word is truth. Lead us by your Holy Spirit wherever you
will, since we know that your Son Jesus is with us. In his name we pray. Amen.
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