Sermon by Pastor Mike Button

What Makes the Cross Necessary?
Text:  Mark 8: 31-38

NRS Mark
31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man 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.  32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.  33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
             34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  35For 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.  36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?  37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?  38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

I have a friend who, a couple of years ago, enrolled her son in a church day school not far from their home.  Neither my friend nor her husband are professing Christians, or in their words, “We’re not Jesus people,” but the school was convenient, it had a good reputation, and the tuition fit their budget.  On the ride home from school after his first day, though, my friend’s son was eager to tell his mom all that he’d learned about Jesus – how they put nails in his hands and feet, how a soldier stabbed him in his side and blood and water came out, how they put a crown of thorns on his head that made blood run down into his eyes, and how it really, really, really hurt and how he cried out to God before he flopped over dead.  What can I say, the kid loves gore, and oh, by the way, did I tell you how my friend is not a Jesus person?  Right, so you can imagine her reaction.  The next day she had her son in another school, where, and I quote, “He would not be traumatized by barbaric stories of human sacrifice.” 

I had to admit that she had a point.  Going right to the cross and the crucifixion is probably not the best strategy for introducing a child to the wonder of Jesus.  On the other hand, the cross is a big part of Jesus’ story, and unless you’re not listening, it’s a pretty terrifying part of the story.  The apostle Paul described the cross as a scandal, a stumbling block to both Jew and Gentile alike, and if the truth be really told, it continues to scandalize us.  We put crosses on our steeples and in our worship rooms, but let’s face it, attendance at Good Friday services has never held a candle to the crowds on Easter Sunday. 
I think most people would prefer to skip over the cross and jump ahead to the good stuff.  I know I would.  Lent’s kind of a pain (am I right?), and the gospel makes a much better movie if the cross is more like an unfortunate bump on Jesus’ road to glory.  You know – like Bruce Willis in the movie “Armageddon,” dying while blowing up the big asteroid that would otherwise end life as we know it.  That’s death with an uplifting message to it!  I can’t help but wonder, “What if Mel Gibson had gotten Bruce Willis to play Jesus in ‘The Passion of the Christ’?” Yippee-eye-yo-kie-yea!

Of course, you’re absolutely right, the gospel doesn’t end with the cross, but neither does the gospel get to the “happy ending” without the cross.  In today’s gospel Jesus describes his cross and resurrection as one, indivisible story.  The cross is, you might say, of a piece with the resurrection, and what’s more, Jesus insists on the necessity of this whole drama of salvation.   Jesus tells his disciples that “the Son of Man 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.”  This insistence on the cross becomes even more explicit when Jesus rebukes Peter, telling him, “Get behind me, Satan,” when Peter would stand between Jesus and his cross.  Jesus charges Peter with setting his mind “not on divine things but on human things,” but that doesn’t keep us from also wondering with Peter, “What was God thinking when he sent his Son, his only Son, to suffer and die on a cross of shame and humiliation?”

If you were to research that question on the internet, it would probably be best to start by googling the word “atonement.”  Atonement is the theological word for the saving work of Christ, specifically his death and resurrection.  With a couple of extra mouse clicks you’ll also find that the church has never settled on just one doctrine of atonement.  Instead, over the centuries, the church has developed a number of theories of atonement, each attempting to capture something of the truth of what God was doing in Christ to save the world. But when you look at the whole body of thought given to Christ’s saving work, we know at least two things that are not true.   

One, we know that Jesus didn’t die to satisfy the blood lust of his Father.  To hear some people tell it, you’d think that God was so angry with his disgusting human creatures that the only thing that could possibly assuage his rage is the blood of his only Son. No.  The doctrine of the Trinity insists that we worship One God in Three Persons, so that the Son and the Holy Spirit are ever and always fully present in the Father as the Father is ever and always fully present in the Son and Holy Spirit -- One God, not three, which means that the Father is as completely loving as the Son as the Holy Spirit.  The Father is not the lunatic member of the Trinity with a bad anger management problem, but quite the opposite;  in the Old Testament’s confession of faith, the Lord is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34: 6).    

And two, we also know that Jesus’ death was more than just an uplifting story meant to cheer us up when we get down on ourselves.  The annals of human history abound in epic sagas of heroic men and women sacrificing themselves for the sake of their fellows.  From the walls of cave dwellings to the monuments that grace our own national mall, we remember and revere the champions who made the ultimate sacrifice.  But Jesus is more than God’s way of illustrating the value of valor and courage and love of neighbor.  For that, God could have sent us an inspirational card, but God chose instead to send us the Son. 

When Jesus died on the cross, two things are happening at the same time, one in the heart of God and the other in the heart of man.  The God of Holy Scripture is, as you well know, a God of both infinite justice and limitless mercy.  Justice and mercy are really what you might call the minimal requirements for any god worthy of our worship and praise.  Could any of us truly give give ourselves to any Lord who either rignores or turns a blind eye to evil and injustice?  But neither could we live with any Lord, or should I say, survive any Lord whose justice does not also spring from wells of unbounded mercy.  If God was all justice all the time, we’d all be toast.  In a way that we’ll never be able to explain in any single doctrine, we know that God’s demand for justice and God’s will for mercy are somehow being worked out in Jesus as he takes up his cross and our salvation.  When Jesus trudges that awful path to Calvary, he is enacting God’s own awful struggle to forge a new covenant of life and hope with this oh-so-broken creation. This is a mystery that can’t be reduced to a formula or contained in any one theory or metaphor.  Faith is required.

But Jesus is also working out something in the heart of humankind.  Why do we continually, consistently, from time immemorial seek out scapegoats to bear the sins of many?  How is it that we so regularly refuse to recognize the common humanity of others, even when they’re suffering at our own hands?  When will we stop standing idly by while the wheels of injustice grind away at the fabric of our own being?  When Jesus goes to the cross, he is breaking our hearts of stone to give us back the hearts of flesh that God willed for us from the beginning.  Jesus is opening a window at the very core of our being for us to share in God’s will for justice and mercy throughout the earth.  Jesus is making it possible for us to take up the cross that comes to anybody who chooses love over hate, engagement rather than indifference, life instead of death. Again, we cannot even begin to speak of this mystery without using the language of poetry and symbol and metaphor, and then even our finest poetry and most exalted philosophy fail us. 

Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t expect us to explain the cross, but he does expect us to take it up.