#37. Taking Up Your Cross Daily (Luke 9:22-26) -- JesusWalk

#37. Taking Up Your Cross Daily (Luke 9:22-26) -- JesusWalk:

"The cross in Jesus' day was an instrument of torture and execution, pure and simple. There wasn't a figurative use of 'cross' as a 'burden' or 'trial' in those ways. Death on the cross was shameful, excruciating, and often protracted.

Did you notice this is the first use of Cross in the gospel? What prompted Jesus referencing the cross? Was there a crucifiction near-by? An old field of crosses from the last rebellion?

What would be the kind of shameful death today? AIDS? Suicide?

What so grusome? Leathal injection? The death Tom Fox faced at the hands of his torturers?

Theme

Discipleship only comes by faith.

Markan Distinctives

• Mark Places Peter’s rebuke immediately after his confession (Matthew “from that time on” Luke omits Peter’s reaction.)


• In Mark, seeing the disciples is Jesus’ impetus to rebuking Peter.


• In Mark Jesus calls the multitude along with his disciples to hear about taking up the cross.


• Interestingly only Mark adds the Gospels sake to that which people ought to loose their life for, he also mentions people being ashamed of Jesus’ words. More telling of the other evangelists purposes if we assume Markan priority.


• Hooker: “What he speaks is the word – a term which is perhaps intended to hint at the fact that this message [the prediction of the passion and his invitation to follow] is (paradoxically) the gospel or the good news.


• Typical of Mark, emotions are rawer


• He doesn’t soften the rebuke by calling Peter a hindrance, he is simply Satan.


• Jesus calls the generation adulterous and sinful

Hook words

Rebuking is the verb used in verse 30 of Jesus’ strict injunction to the disciples to say nothing. They have special knowledge of who Jesus is. They incorrectly use this knowledge to rebuke Jesus from talking about the cross. Surely the Son of God will not die.
Get behind me Satan hooks us into: if any of you would follow (get behind) me, take up your cross. Does renouncing yourself sound like the rebuking of the previous verses?

This is the ironic gospel: the attribute of god known as foolishness and weakness. This bad news is the good news.

believe and follow

This week we are invited to take up our cross and follow Christ. As our example, we are given Abraham. We are not told of how he left Ur, or Aram. We do not follow him as he leaves behind families and cities to be a nomad following the voice of God. It would be an easy sermon if we had. We would have a picture of a man taking up his cross… but then that is not what was credited to him as righteousness.

He believed God’s word. We see God’s side in the Genesis story. He comes and makes covenant with Abraham and Sarah. He owns them, names them as his own. It was not his sacrifice in following God’s word that earns him the stamp of righteousness, but simply that he believed. The English origin of that word betrays what has been lost in translation. Believe is to love. It is not mental assent but the heart’s attention.

Paul concludes

Now the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

God also calls us by name, who love him. Jesus’ invitation is to no less. We cannot claim love with out following. True love demands action.

The Dark Night (Lent A1)

This week's texts read like the points of a sermon already. From temptation and the first sin to the promise of forgiveness to second Adam and his temptation. What a rich sequence.

I am learning about lent. All I knew growing up was from the perspective of a church that does not observe lent. The concept of entering 40 days in the wilderness with Christ catches my attention. We prepare for the joy of the resurrection with a time of physical and spiritual desolation. We examine our hearts through the lens of the darkness of our human situation. Perhaps we may even experience the dark night of the soul.

This is where we begin.

3 2:1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
32:2 Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
32:3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
32:4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

Selah-stop and meditate on this. Happiness contrasted with the wasting, groaning, heaviness of God's hand. This is also grace, in the middle of the dark night.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

Selah-you forgave me. Lord help me to be faithful to you and your people as I lead us into a time of meditation and reflection, that we may see through the darkness the presence of your hand and the hope of salvation.