We Don’t Want the Cross
St. Matthew 16:21-28
3 September 2017 – Redeemer
Why doesn’t Peter want the cross? Why don’t you?
If we put the best construction on Peter’s words he is simply concerned about his friend. “Far be it from you, Lord (to go to the cross.)” Jesus does not put the best construction on Peter’s words. He calls it like He hears it. “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Peter’s sermon to Jesus was written by Satan. For what does Satan want of Jesus? The same thing he got from Adam. Disobey God. Don’t go with what God gives you – humility, dependence, being a son? That’s no way for a man to live. Seek prestige, declare your independence, and go for the glory. Old Adam has Peter’s heart and Satan has his tongue. Pick a better way Jesus. Show them what God can really do! Keep on with the miracles, the power. Can anything good come from suffering and death?
I learned a new word this past week that I think is behind Peter’s and our dislike of the cross. It actually is a brand new word – it was made up this past week by a man named Anthony Esolen. We are “physiophobes.” You know what phobias are – fears. If you are claustrophobic you are afraid of small places. Physio is obvious – physical, real, actual. We are afraid of what is real. Death is real – yet what do we call it “passing on, passing away, departing this life.” We aren’t having a funeral or a burial; we are having a celebration of life. Sin is real – yet at worst we call it “your choice,” at best we might say “I don’t agree with what you are doing.” You’re having the worst week of your life. You are fearful for a child, worried about your test results, struggling with depression. You want to tell someone how life really is. Your best friend asks, “How are you doing?” But you are afraid of saying what is real, “I’m fine.”
Jesus is going to the cross because your sin is real and it has real consequences laid out by God in the very beginning. You sin you lose every good gift of God – you lose friends, you lose your health, you finally lose your life. But more importantly Jesus is going to the cross because God is love. He doesn’t want you to die for your sin. He doesn’t want you to lose your life with Him, so before the foundation of the world, He devised His plan to send His Son in your place. This is genuine love – He loved us while we were sinners. He overcame our evil by His good — His good and sinless Son who hangs and dies in our place.
That is why Jesus is going to the cross. The text is the first time in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus reveals clearly to the disciples what God’s plan is. (The Son of Man) must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Up until this time the kingdom of heaven appeared to be a powerful and glorious kingdom. Sure the parables were a little weird and it sounded like God worked differently than man, but Jesus had fed thousands, walked on water, cast out demons, escaped danger and won every verbal debate with the Pharisees. He was a populist Messiah – who wouldn’t want a leader who could deliver free health care and free lunch?
But all of that was a prelude – all of that was to show and demonstrate He is who He said He is – Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Now, the prelude was over, and the great work is on the horizon. Jesus is going to death and the cross.
This can’t be real, thinks Peter. “Far be it from you, Lord.” Think about what Peter is asking. Peter’s way would result in his own damnation. His way would send him and us to hell. This is exactly what Satan wants – so Satan feeds on our fears – don’t talk about sin, don’t think about death, don’t acknowledge how hard life really is in this broken world. Look for a Jesus who makes things better without real suffering and real death. That is Satan’s sermon, easy on the ears, but it won’t save, so Jesus rebukes Peter, “Get behind me Satan.”
God’s way of salvation is not by power, but by weakness. Not by victory, but by defeat. Not by glory, but by the cross. To all appearances Christ’s enemies won. Judas betrayed him. The chief priests, elders, and scribes accused him. Pilate convicted Him and the Romans killed Him dead. You and I know what eyes cannot see, but our ears have heard. Christ Jesus willingly went to the cross. He did not use His great authority as the Son of Man to Lord it over us, but to serve us – by taking our sins upon Him. The perfect Son of God becomes the chief sinner, the sinner of all sinners. The beloved Son becomes the object of His Father’s anger. We are exalted to be God’s children because He was humiliated. We live because He died. We are found because He was lost. We are forgiven because He was damned. You and I are saved from our real sin and our real death by a real man who died on a real cross and was buried in a real tomb outside Jerusalem.
It is unlikely that Peter and the disciples even heard the rest of the plan. “He would be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Because Jesus really is the Son of the living God, His death is the end of sin’s consequence. No more sin. No more death. God’s own blood is more than enough payment for your sin. Now the resurrection is real – first for Jesus then all who believe, for you who believe in His way — His suffering, His death, His cross for you. Your resurrection is your new reality.
So Christ calls Peter and you to follow Him, not in bearing a cross for the sin of the world. That was for Christ alone, but to follow in bearing whatever cross God gives us. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” In my reading this past week I read two excellent suggestions about how we should deny ourselves. 1) Don’t expect or demand that God work in powerful, visible ways. Some people have suggested that God sent the Hurricane to Texas to punish them. That’s rubbish. The people of Texas are no worse sinners than we are. Perhaps God allowed the hurricane so we would quit hating each other and start serving our neighbor in love. I don’t know. God doesn’t let me in on His daily plans. Our great temptation is to ask and seek God in powerful, visible ways – save me from suffering, grant my children happiness, make our church grow, make my business successful, give me enough money to do what I want, make evil people pay for their sins. You have in mind the things of man and not the things of God. God does His greatest work in suffering. You’ve taken your eyes off Jesus’ cross. Jesus asks, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? If God worked in the ways you wanted, and gave you what you wanted, you would want little or nothing to do with Jesus. Gaining the world, you would forfeit your life, because you would forfeit your Savior.
The second way to deny yourself is don’t ask for power for yourself. Have you ever fixed all the problems of the world over morning coffee or a craft brew at your favorite pub, or at a pastor’s conference? Put me in charge God. I’ve got a pretty good idea what’s wrong. If people would listen to me everything would be fine. The baptized Christian’s self-denial is to live humbly because we know what we deserve from God (death and judgment) and what we have received from Him (life and salvation in Christ). We are totally dependent on God and He has given us His own Son. That is why we delight in whatever else He gives us – including suffering, our crosses, the world’s opposition and hatred.
Our Lord Jesus put Himself under us – bearing our sins, taking our pains, dying in our place so that we could have life and salvation. Because we have such a Lord and such a certain future – we bear our cross – God gives us others to serve – if your enemy is hungry, feed him, bless those who persecute you. Don’t repay evil with evil but try to live peaceably with all. Rejoice in hope; be patient in tribulation, and constant in prayer. We’re following Jesus through life to the resurrection. The world hated Him. It shouldn’t surprise us if they hate us, even as we seek to love and serve them. That’s the cross that we’ve been given in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
2 September 2017 – Redeemer