By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Feb. 25, 2024)
"Take up your cross and follow me," Jesus says. "Whoever does not lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel," Jesus says. "Get behind me, Satan," Jesus says.
The Gospel lesson's a tough one today. My wife Colette teases me that I always like to start the sermon by telling you how hard it was to write the sermon because of how challenging the text is. But I think it might be a consistent feature of Scripture that the text is challenging. Often it's tough because there's something I don't understand, or that I find perplexing, or confusing, or frustrating, and I talk through that with you all. Usually it hinges on some Greek translation. Not this time though. What Jesus says is pretty clear. "Take up your cross. Whoever does not lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel. Get behind me, Satan."
One of the commentators I was reading as I prepared for the sermon, he used a line from Mark Twain that I'm going to repeat. Mark Twain said, "It ain't those parts of the Bible I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts I do understand." And this is one of those parts.
The line, "Take up your cross and follow me," troubles me for a couple of reasons or in a couple of ways, personal and also political. And by political I don't mean partisan necessarily, I just mean in the public sense. Take up your cross, personally, I don't like to suffer. That's not something I want to do for myself. And it's not easy to hear Jesus say that. Publicly and politically, I don't like suffering of others either. And we know that teachings like this have been used to vindicate or valorize the suffering of others. To make sacred the suffering of others, to tell folks who are suffering that their suffering is holy and they should just wait for their reward in another world rather than us easing their suffering in this world.
And both of these things are true. This disease I have with "take up your cross," that line, that's all true even before we consider the historical situation of crucifixion, even before we consider what crucifixion was and meant. Even before we consider how doing that will magnify the scandal of this teaching. I mean, I won't spend a long time going into the horrors of crucifixion as a torture device, but we know it was this excruciating form of torture and execution. It was specifically a sentence to insurrectionists, to political criminals. And in fact when this Gospel was written, the Gospel of Mark was written after the fall of Jerusalem, we know from contemporaneous historical accounts that during the siege and fall of Jerusalem, thousands upon thousands of people were crucified. The streets were lined with naked bodies on crosses. Just horrible, unimaginably horrible stuff.
And here comes Jesus saying, "You're not a Christian unless you're crucified. You're not a Christian unless you're tortured to death, unless you follow me to this end." This is a tough Gospel. And to top it off when Peter resists the rebuke, "Get behind me, Satan." So this moment, this difficult exchange is of course part of a larger story. The Gospel of Mark is a full story, and this is one moment within the arc of that story. And this moment comes about halfway through the story. There are 16 chapters in the Gospel of Mark. This is chapter eight. Jesus is just about to head towards Jerusalem, just about to take up His cross for the sake of the Gospel.
But what's been happening in the first half of the story is a lot of miracles. We've been doing studies of the Gospels in our Faith & Life Forum downstairs, and one of the things that distinguishes the Gospel of Mark is how heavy on the miracles it is. There's not a lot of teaching in the first eight chapters of the Gospel of Mark. It's mostly Jesus enacting these incredible deeds of power.
The most recent just before this passage is, He healed a blind person named Bartimaeus. And then people complained about that because it was on the Sabbath. That's a different sermon, but he healed this blind person named Bartimaeus. And then prior to that, He's fed 4,000 people with a couple of loaves and fishes. And then prior to that, He fed 5,000 people with a couple of loaves and fishes. And before that, He raised a young girl from the dead. For chapter upon chapter, He's been reaching out to outcasts and marginalized people, Gentiles, women who are richly impure for whatever reason, and healing them. There's the man among the tombs who cuts himself and cries all night and Jesus goes to him and heals him, walks on water.
Deed after deed of power and might Jesus has been accomplishing for these first eight chapters. And so in this eighth chapter, the crowds are talking about Him. Of course they are. "Look at what He's been doing. Who is this guy? What is going on here?" And that's why in the lines just before the passage for this morning, Jesus turns to His disciples. He hears the crowds talking about who He is. So Jesus turns to His disciples and says, "I hear they're all talking. Who do you say that I am?" And Peter responds and says, "You're the one. You're the Messiah."
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And that's where this lesson begins, the first word of our Gospel lesson, then He began to teach him then. What it follows is Peter saying, "You are the one, the one we've been waiting for. You are the Messiah." And then He begins to teach them that, "You'll undergo great suffering. Then He says, "So take up your cross and follow me for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel."
And this is why Peter rebukes Him. Peter rebukes Him first. Rebukes happens a couple of times in this passage, and Peter rebukes Jesus first. Interesting, I got to put in some Greek. The word for rebuke here is the same word that Jesus uses to silence demons when He is doing His healings. Peter rebukes Jesus first. "Never. You're the one, you're the Messiah. The Messiah's not supposed to be crucified. The Messiah is meant to be the king. The Messiah is meant to overthrow Rome. Lift up our people, restore the Kingdom. I've seen what you can do," Peter says. "All these people have seen what you can do. We've seen your power and power is what we need. We need mights. We need power. Look at the boot that the Romans have on our necks. We need might and force, and you can do it. You walk on water, you calm storms, you raise the dead. You are the one."
That's why he takes a sword at Jesus' arrest. That's why in tradition, Peter is the one that cuts off the ear of the chief priest servant. Jesus rebukes him then too, tells him to put away his sword.
I believe Peter loved Jesus and he doesn't like hearing that this person he loves says He's going to go die. So Peter loves Jesus, but I think Peter also loves his idea of who Jesus is. Part of what he's trying to do is protect his friend and teacher, but he's also trying to protect his idea of who Jesus is, and what Jesus's ministry means, and who Jesus will be for him. He's seen all the miracles. "I'll believe in that," he says. He has this man Jesus before him, but he also has this idea of triumph, and rebellion, and resistance and conquest, and that's what he believes in.
This is why I think Jesus's rebuke, the way He shapes His rebuke, the way He formulates this teaching is so important. He doesn't just say, "Take up your cross and follow me." He doesn't just say, "Lose your life." He doesn't even just say, "Lose your life for my sake." He says, "Lose your life for the sake of the Gospel. Lose your life not just for your idea of who I am, but for what I am doing and for what I am preaching."
And what is the Gospel? This is the other unique thing about Mark. It starts right at the beginning with Jesus being baptized first and then proclaiming the Good News, the Gospel of God. His Gospel is about repentance and the forgiveness of sins. His Gospel is about feeding the poor and welcoming the stranger, and caring for the sick, and visiting the prisoner. This cavalcade of miracles over eight chapters, I think we with our modern minds that aren't likely to believe in miracles or aren't inclined to believe in miracles, we get distracted by the what of those miracles and neglect the who of the miracles.
Jesus isn't out there helping warriors, and princes, and generals and kings. Who is He helping? Who is this Good News for? He's reaching out to the hungry, and the poor, and the outcast, and the impure, the diseased. "This is what you take risks for," Jesus is saying. Rather, this is who you take risks for. This is who the Gospel is for. And so when Jesus says that He must suffer, I don't think it's Him saying that suffering is a necessary part of it. He's saying, "We will not turn away. I will not turn away from those for whom I came. No one will turn me away from the hungry, the sick, the poor, the outcast. Not you, Peter, not Pontius Pilate. Not all of Rome, not death itself. None of this will turn me away from the Good News. Good news for the poor, for the outcast."
What He's saying is, "There's a different way of living, a different set of values, which is not about vengeance, and triumph, and conquest or power, but about mercy, and love, and goodness, and that I am willing to die for," Jesus says. It's a totally different way of life. And in that sense, it is a political claim which is why He's given the punishment of a political criminal.
This is what Jesus is saying, "The what of these miracles, that's not what I'm here for. It's the who, the lost and the oppressed. They are the ones I'm here for. I won't struggle and die for war and violence, and exclusion, and power, and triumph. But I will absolutely struggle and endure suffering, and even die for those who suffer under the boot of war, and violence, and exclusion, and power, and triumph. So if you want to be my disciple, follow me."
It's easy to chide Peter and the other disciples for not getting it. They didn't understand what Jesus was saying. They were confused. They had visions of conquest. They had the wrong idea of who Jesus is. The wrong idea of who God is, not like us, we have the right idea, right? Right.
The God most Christians want, I fear, especially the God most American Christians want, I think is a God of punishment, and vengeance, and power, and triumph. In our institutions if we're honest, our testimony to that vision of God, that idea of God, look at our prisons which house millions without mercy. Look at our borders that turn away the afraid and needy without mercy. Look at our relentless military excursions, which in the last 20 years have killed hundreds of thousands. Look at our military aid that sponsors endless cycles of suffering and retribution. "Get behind me, Satan," Jesus says. Perhaps we ought to, at least from there we'd be in the right position to start following Him