Early on in my Christian journey, some fourteen years ago, when I began attending church services but couldn’t yet really imagine joining the church, I realized that even when I didn’t enjoy a sermon, I was nevertheless spiritually activated by it.
I’d sit there in the pew frustrated by something the preacher was saying, and my mind would race with questions and curiosities about how I could bring together what I thought I knew about the spirit and the world, and what I was hearing about God. There were, of course, also ideas in the sermons that easily aligned or expanded upon what I knew, and through this process, I slowly began to understand the beauty of the Christian worldview.
I also knew that if I was to continue exploring this Christian world, I would have to be actively engaged in trying to understand this terrain of faith, and to navigate it the best I could.
My guiding light on this journey would always be life; in which direction is there life?
We can look in history and around our world today, and see a broad diversity of interpretation of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and see that there are many paths through the land of Christian faith and spirituality. Do they all lead to abundant life, or only some? Which one am I on? Which one are we on? Is it covered in brambles, is it up a mountain? Is the path we’re on leading towards life? I want to ask these questions as we hear Jesus say in the Gospel reading this week, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” How does the light of life guide us here?
Last week, we progressed along this path by hearing Simon identify who Jesus is: “The Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We progressed further, as Jesus responded by identifying who Simon is: he is Peter, which wasn’t a proper name at the time but just meant rock, “and on this rock I will build my church.” Each of these are of course great paths to explore, but that was last week’s task, with Brian’s wise guidance.
This week we progress further, with a gospel reading that begins “from then on,” meaning, “Where do we go from here, now we know who Jesus is, and who the church is?”
Jesus says that the path forward is towards condemnation, suffering, and death—and resurrection—but Peter only hears the painful parts of that. We join Peter in our confusion, as we also are scandalized hearing that condemnation, suffering, and death are ahead on the path. Not only does it go against the quite reasonable animal part in ourselves that places a very high value on self-preservation, but against all prophetic expectations of 1st Century Israel. It doesn’t make sense that the person that Peter and the disciples know Jesus to be, the Messiah, who is the one who will deliver Israel from unjust imperial rule, and lead Israel on one final exodus, that this person must suffer and die. That it is through that suffering and death that the Messiah will achieve God’s goal. So Peter speaks for all disciples, which is to say, the church through the centuries, saying “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
This invites Jesus to speak to all those who will follow him, then and through the years. I interpret his response, meaning: No, that is not the way, that way of self-preservation at the expense of an obedience to love. The way of God is the way of love, and the kingdom for which Jesus is the messiah runs cross-wise to self-preservation. In saying that a disciple must “deny themselves” is to say we should take our self-preservation down a notch, so that we can love more boldly. This is life we are being called to.
Though to go down this difficult path, we should be prepared, like a builder with their materials and plans before beginning construction, as Jesus says in Luke. There is the spiritual readiness of remaining in love and for love in situations that prompt self-preservation. And then there is the theological readiness, being aware of the potential dangers in a worldview that embraces some types of suffering. We should be aware of the theological paths that excessively justify suffering as if suffering itself proves that you are on the correct path, or, that the self-denial we are called to is a denial of all of life’s pleasures, joys and satisfactions. No, to both. For in addition to picking up the cross, Jesus elsewhere says in following him the burden is light, the yoke is easy. There will inherently be difficulty in the pursuit of the new life in Christ, but pain is never the purpose.
I think there’s some clarity around which of these paths are life-giving when we consider more fully the meaning of the cross, in the life of Jesus and our own.
I’ve recently been helped in my understanding of the event of the cross, by the Anglican Bishop and theologian NT Wright, in his books Simply Jesus and the book we’ve been reading in the Romans group, Into the Heart of Romans. This is a theology of the cross that sees the entirety of human history beginning with Adam and Eve being under the dominion of sin and death: the law could not overcome it, nor would a frontal assault on empire be able to overcome it. At the crucifixion of Jesus, Wright describes all the sin of the world, all the powers of evil that drive domination and unjust authority, that all this was focused at one time, in one place, on one, perfectly innocent person.
All of this power comes to bear on one person and Jesus allows it, having emptied himself of self-preservation so that he can be filled with God’s love, so that God, in Jesus, can say no, not today, Satan, not ever again: grace is now and forever more the most powerful force in the world. In the Kingdom of God power is in repentance and forgiveness and the embrace of all people, especially the sick and the lowly, not in a tribe, or in domination in any form. Even if death still persists as a fact of being human, it has lost its sting.
To be honest, I was somewhat surprised to find this theology of the cross in Wright, as well as how much I was drawn in and inspired by it. Wright illuminates this narrow path amid the theological pitfalls that emphasizes that “Jesus died for you, for your specific sins” which I think is frequently heard in life-limiting, guilt-increasing ways. Wright emphasizes that Jesus went to the cross, and was resurrected, to defeat sin itself. That on the cross, sin met a power greater than itself and exhausted itself. For Jesus lived and lives on. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
So it is in this world, a world in which grace reigns supreme, we are beckoned to pick up our cross and follow. Sin still persists in our world, in ourselves and in others and in the systems we create, but in this world is also a hand always extended, a door always open, to a life in the spirit, by grace. And by faith we believe this is the supreme force in the world, grace, and strive to bring our frustrations and sorrows into its healing light. The prison of sin that Paul describes, in which he “[does] not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,” this prison is broken open, and outside these walls lies a renewed and liberated life in Christ.
So with this in mind—which seems to be something I’m saying more and more as I want to only ever read a piece of scripture amongst larger narratives and movements in scripture, or think about one piece of theology within the larger system of theology—we pick up and carry the cross and follow Jesus because we believe we must lose our small-minded and solely-self-preservation-focused life, in order to find the much larger eternal and abundant life. Our hearts break at the death of Jesus, that death and life would be so mysteriously intertwined. And our hearts break when we perceive the value of what is being risked, and yet, a heart broken open is a heart fully alive, and a life risked for love is a life gained.
Paul sketches a vision of this life following Christ in our portion of Romans. As much as it might seem, these are not admonishments to be good, and especially not admonishments so that you may receive God’s approval, but rather, “the structure of a life that follows from grace.” With open hearts we perceive God’s grace in the world, we notice God’s grace in our lives, and we feel and know God’s grace in our hearts. And then, this is the life that flows from it: genuine love, holding fast to what is good, hating evil for how it counteracts love, loving one another with mutual affection, and outdoing one another in showing honor.” The whole thing. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” All of it. There are no small rewards in being led by grace, as through each of these the current of life flows free and powerful. Simon Peter will get there. Simon, the rock who couldn’t walk on water, is briefly a stumbling block, and will be so dense as to deny Jesus three times, will become the foundation. So, we, too are allowed hesitation and fear. Nevertheless, may we all, today and this week, grow in our trust that life, real abundant life, is in the grace that shines through the cross, that we must lose our life for love’s sake, in order to find it. May God’s grace be with you all.
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