“Why Jesus?”

Karen Sloan  - 25/02/2024

Readings - Mark 8:31-38

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”.

Jesus and God, a incredible combination.  But why??

Not the reasons so many think. 

While I totally believe the spirit of God  is revealed in and around us, and has done since the beginning of time, I think the Jesus story still resonates with our contemporary life is a way that is so powerful, and so necessary to our faith journey. If we leave him behind we leave something integral and central to our lives.

Someone once said Jesus is their Rosetta stone, the way they interpret God in the world, and the way we are to show God in the world.  I rather like that, as it gives us a way of understanding Jesus which focuses on his lived experience.  Remember the Rosetta stone, it was used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics.  On it was a royal decree inscribed in two different languages, Greek, and Egyptian and 3 types of script.  Using the 2 known languages, the puzzle of the hieroglyphics was solved.

So how do we hear the voice of Jesus, mainly through others which of course if part of the gift and part of the problem.

Today we hear from the Gospel of Mark, dated about 70 AD about some of that lived experience. From Mark, the shortest of the gospels and the first one written, we hear Jesus calling all to new life, to a fullness of life, to wholeness, a call to change their lives for the kingdom of God was at hand.  He spoke as one with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees.  And we hear the sacrifices Jesus is to make for this kingdom. For the world of Jesus, as was the world of Mark, was a violent world, an unjust world. A world where to be a Jesus follower was fraught. Yet Jesus challenges all of that and points the way to a world of love.

As we enter into the time of lent, and the runup to Easter, and the runup to the cross, maybe we it’s time to get a handle of what this story, Jesus’s story means for us today.

Bill loader has said, in a great summary, ““to be an agent of God is to be a lover, not a winner”. “Jesus gives himself over to the violence and power of others without compromising his vision of love. He offers an alternative to what had gone before, what people expected of him and what people expected of God. The cross ends up being a symbol of sacrifice, not to save us from our sins but to provide a light away from them. Instead of redemptive violence we get redemptive love.”

The cross was an execution,  because that was what Rome used for political dissenters, but it also was an emphatic statement.  It applied to Jesus because his story was one of confrontation with the authorities declaring justice over injustice, love over hate and peace over violence.

The reading today is really setting the scene for all of this. Initially we find Peter having a problem with the ending. He responds to Jesus` words that he will suffer, be rejected and die but will rise again, with outrage. While many debate whether these words are original or added later, the message is clear, the vocation of Jesus will inevitably clash with the powers of the day.  Peter is probably shocked and maybe even frightened, because, as we have heard many times, he thought of Jesus as a Jewish messiah, who would come and conquer and overturn things with might and glory.

Yet we know that Jesus was not that sort of Messiah. Peter rebukes Jesus, but Jesus lets him know pretty plainly, that `he is setting his mind not on divine things but on human things`. 

Jesus uses poor Peter as his fall guy, dismissing his response in the passage with scorn. `What, you still don`t get it`. The problem is, getting it means getting something much bigger and much more costly. And it could equally apply to each of us. 

Because in the reading we then hear Jesus speaking of the cross, tying it to discipleship. Let me read what it says again,

He 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. (Mark 8:34-36)

But what does it mean to deny oneself. It certainly does not mean we restrict our food or chocolate intake as many during lent will be doing.  It is not to turn away from sin and death, but reorientate ourselves towards life and light.  It is to turn towards God, and all that Jesus represented.

To deny oneself is to offer an alternative model for living, it is to admit political and social and personal alignment with Jesus, leaving behind those things in society which do not conform to his message. It is to deny the safe and easy option, for one which is costly and may inevitably lead to suffering and death, but which ultimately leads to life. Not a life in another place but fullness of life here and now.

Again Bill Loader summarises it beautifully, “In Mark`s context it is to choose to be faithful followers of Jesus and not to renege on all that he stands for when faced with pressure and persecution to deny him. Being true to him, to God and to ourselves.”

So, the cross represents a dying to the conventions of the world, of rising to a new identity, and a new way of being.  Not easy! Particularly for us in a first world, highly technological and pretty wealthy country.

And we know this is also a very risky business, as Jesus discovered. To preach nonviolence, love and justice in our world is to court ridicule and possibly retribution. And to suggest that we should serve others, sharing our wealth and time, is often seen as a joke to those who worship the individual`s right to look after themselves. But as Jesus assures us, this path is the path to life, true life, a life in and with God.

Life is a journey, being human is not easy, but God is ever present, to give strength and love for us to continue to be strength and love to others. As Jesus did.

In the end we can find strength in the truth of Jesus story and message. 

But we have to choose, and so does the church.

 Amen