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It all begins with one emperor
penguin jumping out of the water and doing a belly splash
onto the ice. Then he rises on his little web feet and the
rich, resonate voice of the narrator says: “Like most love
stories, it begins with an act of utter foolishness. Each
year at about the same time, the emperor penguin will leave
the comforts of his ocean home and embark on an incredible
journey. Though he is a bird, he won’t fly. Though he lives
in the ocean, he won’t swim. For the most part, he will
walk. But he won’t walk alone.”
Gradually the scene fills with
hundreds of penguins, padding along on their little feet,
past immense ice formations under a crystal blue sky.
The destination is always the
same, but the path is not, since the ice and land never stop
shifting. New roadblocks will arise which seem to baffle
them. But they never stop for long. Soon one of them will
pick up the trail and the journey continues.
That’s the introduction to one
of the most incredible movies I have seen lately, March
of the Penguins. It’s the story of their journey of over
70 miles to mate and breed in the most unaccommodating of
conditions. But of course, it’s the story of another love
story, another march, and another journey as well — the
story of the cross, the march of Jesus, the journey of Lent.
Like all love stories, it begins with an act of utter
foolishness. The destination is always the same, but the
path can be quite different. The good news is we never make
the journey alone.
Mark
records the moment, the invitation to the journey.
The story is repeated in all
three of the synoptic Gospels as the critical turning point
in the life and ministry of Jesus and the journey of the
disciples. And in some ways, it reads like an act of utter
foolishness.
(Read
Mark 8:27-9:1)
Listen...do, da, do...do you
want to know a secret;
Do you promise not to tell?
Whoa...oh...oh...closer.
Ay, you are giving away your
age! Those “of a certain age” will remember that as an old
Beatles’ tune, but it could also be the theme song of Mark’s
Gospel—it’s about a secret, the Jesus secret, the Messianic
secret. Through Mark’s brief narrative, Jesus seems to
constantly be revealing and concealing, holding back and
then gradually holding forth his identity, dropping clues,
giving hints, then pulling back until it seems the disciples
are just beginning to catch on.
…Closer...whoa, oh,
oh...closer...
All the while, Jesus’ popularity
with the common people continues to rise. Can’t you hear
them saying:
-
“He
certainly looks like the real thing, don’t you think?”
-
“Yep,
looks like it to me...”
-
“He’s
the grand high Pooh-Bah, all right; this is the Real
Thing, the Big Kahuna. He must be the real Messiah.”
And at the same time, the
opposition rises as well. The more popular he becomes with
the common folk, the more hated he is by the powers that
be:
-
“A
troublemaker, that’s what he is — getting people all
riled up.”
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“Saying
things that are just gonna get people upset.”
-
“The
people were quiet and happy the way they were. Why
doesn’t he just leave well-enough alone?”
Back in the ’60’s in my
all-white, small-town hometown in western Pennsylvania, I
remember that’s what they said about Martin Luther King, Jr.
We didn’t know any black people, of course, and many of us
had never been south of Pittsburgh, let alone the
Mason-Dixon Line. But we were sure we understood, sure we
knew that those folks in the South were happy with things
just the way they were. “Leave them alone, let it be,” I
remember them saying. “He’s just a trouble-maker. That’s
what he is, a troublemaker.”
So in Mark’s rapid-paced
narrative, Jesus’ popularity rises, and so does his
opposition, as he tries to gradually reveal and conceal,
little by little sharing the secret, until it builds to a
crescendo peak in Chapter 8. Finally, Jesus poses the
question which is at the heart of the secret:
“Who do
others say that I am?”
“Well, you know, some think
you’re a prophet. Some think you’re a miracle worker, maybe
John the Baptist reincarnated, or Elijah, or one of them.”
“But who
do you say that I am?”
Before
anyone can think, Peter blurts it out: “We know who you are!
You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Mark says, “He charged them
to tell no one...and he began to teach them that the Son of
Man must suffer, be rejected and killed, and after three
days, rise again.” Mark says, “He told them plainly.”
No more secrets, no more hints.
It’s time to face the truth. Time to deal with what New
Testament scholar Justo Gonzales says is the central
question of the Gospel:
What does it mean to be the
Son of God? The first chapters of Mark give us the
impression that to be the Son of God means to have clear
power over everything. Jesus fights Satan in the wilderness,
heals the paralyzed, the blind and the deaf, stills the
storm, feeds the multitudes, walks on water. But now, at
this point in Mark’s story, Jesus surprises us with the
secret.
(Justo
Gonzalez, Mark’s Message,
page 41)
1. YOU SAY I AM THE SON OF GOD...WELL, I’LL TELL YOU
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE THE SON OF GOD — IT MEANS A CROSS.
He tells them plainly. But the
sad truth is, they don’t get it. He tells them again in
Chapter 9 and for the third time in Chapter 10, but they
still don’t get it.
Maybe it’s hard for us to
understand their block-headedness, their unwillingness to
hear what Jesus is saying, their shock and revulsion at the
mention of the cross. Maybe it’s hard for us because we have
become so accustomed to the cross, so used to seeing
everyone from rappers and rock singers to athletes and
fashion models wearing crosses around their necks or
dangling from their ears, so familiar with steeples and
bumper stickers, cemeteries and skylines. We are perfectly
comfortable with silver-plated crosses and finely-polished
crosses and plexaglass crosses, we are hardly shocked any
more. We are no longer surprised by the word of the cross,
so it is hard for us to put ourselves in the place and time
of these disciples, a day when the crosses which lined the
roads were not painted white or shining steel, rather they
were draped with writhing, bleeding bodies of victims, like
so many human scarecrows in a cornfield, gasping for breath
through agonizing days of a long, slow death.
For Jesus’ disciples in Jesus’
day, the sheer mention of the cross was shocking,
unbelievable, and simply didn’t square with their idea of
what it meant for Jesus to be the Christ:
-
They
thought it meant popularity and power, maybe even
political power, and of course, there are still those
who equate Christian faith with political power.
-
They
thought it meant success, maybe even material success,
and there are still those who believe that if you just
trust in Jesus, you can be healthy and wealthy.
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They
thought it meant fame, maybe even a little fame for
themselves.
So Jesus
confronts them, telling them what it really means:
You think you’ve got the secret.
You think you’ve figured it all out. You say I am the
Christ, the Son of the Living God. Well, let me tell you
another secret. Let me tell you what it means to be the Son
of God — it means to suffer and die. It means a cross.
Because the Son of God is the
one who is willing to go all the way to the cross in order
to redeem and transform, willing even to die to show God’s
love and mercy, willing to give himself for the whole world.
That’s the secret of the
Gospel, the mystery of the atonement, the act of utter
foolishness, the incredible journey of God’s amazing love.
That’s the
secret at the beginning of the journey. It seems like an act
of utter foolishness.
“You say I am the Son of
God...well, here is what it means to be the Son of God: it
means a cross.”
2. AND THIS IS WHAT IT
MEANS TO FOLLOW THE SON OF GOD...IT MEANS A CROSS.
“If… (it’s a big “if,” by the
way)…if anyone would come after me, let them deny
themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.”
Jesus says, “Here’s the second
part of the secret. It means a cross for me. And it will
mean a cross for you. Deny yourself, take up your cross and
follow me."
Justo Gonzalez says that over
time, this call to “take up your cross” moved in one
of two directions, two extremes:
-
Either it meant to bring
unnecessary suffering upon themselves through
self-flagellation, inordinate fasting and sacrifices,
stern monastic disciplines and brutal self-denial,
-
or taking up the cross meant
whatever little inconvenience or discomfort happened to
befall them: “Oh, you know, it’s just my cross to bear.”
(See J. Gonzalez, Mark’s Message, page 66)
Either way, we tend to lose
sight of the cross as the call of Christian discipleship,
the invitation to the journey, the command to follow Christ
in cross-shaped living:
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To
sensitize ourselves to the needs of others
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To
place the cross at the center of our worship and life
together
-
To
allow the love of Christ to shape our compassion and
caring
-
To center our lives in the
suffering Christ who was willing to give himself for the
sake of others
I know it’s not really like
Methodists to make the sign of the cross. I can always tell
the Methodists who have come from Anglican or Roman Catholic
backgrounds, who unconsciously and spontaneously make the
sign of the cross as they come for communion or when they
hear the words, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.” Those of us who are born-and-bred, cradle-to-grave
Protestants tend to think that making the sign of the cross
is like a lucky charm or a superstition….when an airplane is
ready to take off, when a basketball player steps to the
foul line, like throwing salt over your shoulder or
clutching a rabbit’s foot.
But
more deeply, what would it mean to mark our lives with the
sign of the cross?
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To
allow our thoughts to be formed after the mind of Christ
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To
plant the cross in our guts, our passions, our deep
desires and motivations
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To place the cross in our
hearts so that every emotion, every love, and all our
relationships would be shaped by the love of Christ
-
To bear
the cross on our right hand so that all we do with our
hands, our work and our actions might carry the imprint
of the Cross
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To live
a cross-shaped life after the pattern of Christ
Jesus says, “Listen…do you want
to know a secret? Here’s what it means to be the Christ…it
means a cross. This is what it means to follow the Christ…it
means a cross.” And in response, the hymn writer asks the
only appropriate question and gives the only appropriate
answer:
Must Jesus bear the cross alone
and all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for
me.
Jesus says whoever grabs life,
clutches life and selfishly holds it will lose it. But
whoever lets loose of life, handles life like a gift in an
open hand, offering life to others in love and service, they
will find it. For what does it profit if a person gains the
whole world, and loses their soul?
Our Lenten theme is
“Walking with Jesus.”
It is an invitation to a
journey. Like the penguin’s march, it is a journey of love
which begins with an act of utter foolishness. Every year,
at about the same time, we leave the comforts of our daily
lives and embark on this incredible journey. It’s not an
easy journey, mind you. If you really want to go, if you
choose to follow, it might even mean denying yourself,
taking up a cross, following Christ. But the good news is we
don’t make the journey alone. We join company with one
another. If we lose our way, if life seems to baffle us, we
won’t stay stopped for long. Someone is sure to pick up the
trail and the journey will continue. We travel in the spirit
of the Christ. We journey under the sign of the cross.
The
question is: “Are you ready for the journey?”
Ready for the journey of Lent.
Ready to walk with Jesus.
Ready for the journey under the sign of the
cross.
While I was with the Division of
Ordained Ministry in Nashville, I had the privilege of
working alongside the Section of Chaplains for our
denomination. One of my colleagues was an officer in the Air
Force who had previously been the head of the Office of the
Chaplains in the Pentagon. My admiration for our men and
women who wear the sign of the cross on their uniforms grew
during those years. Methodism has a great history of sending
chaplains to serve in the armed forces in every time of war,
and they are there today.
Bernie Leiving is retired now,
but he served as a military chaplain during the Vietnam War.
He had grown up in a small town in West Virginia. He had
hardly ever met a Roman Catholic until he found himself in
South Vietnam in 1968. He says he hadn’t been there very
long when his unit came under fire. He writes:
...a young soldier, 19 or 20
years old, took several rounds and was lying on the ground
critically wounded. The medic was there immediately, and I
crawled over to that soldier and medic. The soldier saw me
and saw the cross on my uniform and said, “Father, hear my
confession.” Now I wasn’t a priest, but I was his chaplain,
and as I leaned down to that young man, he began to motion
the sign of the cross...and he died.
I don’t know what that soldier
was going to tell me, but I believe in that moment that a
loving, forgiving God heard the prayer of a young man whose
soul was going home.
Bernie says he remembers riding
in the Huey helicopters going into combat with six or eight
of those young soldiers, utterly silent. And one or two of
those young men would look over at him, recognizing him as a
chaplain, and they would smile and make the sign of the
cross.
At that time [Bernie says], the
sign of the cross took on new meaning in my life. So I have
to admit, at that point, I guess I am a kind of closet Roman
Catholic, because there have been many times for me that
there is no symbol, no act more significant than the sign of
the cross...“In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.”
(Rev. James A. Harnish,
Sermons from Hyde Park, 3/31/96)
Jesus says, “If anyone would
come after me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross
and follow me. For whoever would save their lives, will lose
it; and whoever loses their lives for my sake and the Gospel
will save it.”
Well, about the same time every
year, we make this incredible journey. Like most love
stories, it begins with an act of utter foolishness. We
won’t fly, we won’t swim, for the most part we will walk.
Are you
ready for the journey?
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