21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
27 “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Matthew 16:21-28 regard the importance of the cross in Christian discipleship.
Matthew 16:21-23 is the first prediction of the passion. The source is Mark 8:31-33 with a shorter form in Luke 9:22. After every reference to his approaching death, Jesus begins a new lesson on discipleship. The Synoptic Gospel story divides the ministry of Jesus into two stages, one in Galilee, and one on a journey toward Jerusalem. The moment of the confession of faith by Peter becomes the hinge moment.
21 From that time on, the moment Peter made his confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, Jesus began to show (δεικνύειν), instead of the rabbi Jesus teaching he shows his disciples that he must (δεῖ, it is necessary), only time we find this word in the passion predictions, Both "show" and "must" are terms frequently emphasized in apocalyptic writings. A sequence of events is about to unfold whose outcome is part of the divine plan‑‑not the choice of Jesus. In this case, the sequence of events is that Jesus must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering (παθεῖν) at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and, in an action performed by God, on the third day be raised (ἐγερθῆναι). The focus is on the suffering, rejection, and death, with only a brief reference to resurrection. Easter is not a way to escape Lent and Good Friday! The cross is still a difficult message to accept. As it stands, the text reflects post-Easter faith. It reflects a summary of the core beliefs of the early church. Paul in I Corinthians 15:3-4 wrote a summary of the core beliefs he received, undoubtedly soon after his conversion, which would have been about three years after the death of Jesus. It contains a summary that relates the death of Christ for our sins “in accordance with the scripture,” and of God raising him to life “in accordance with the scripture.” Luke uses similar terms. In Acts 2:23-24, Jesus the Nazarene received death through the power of the Jewish leaders and the foreknowledge of God, crucifying him through Gentile powers, but God raising him to life, freeing him from Hades, for Hades did not have the power to hold him. In Acts 3:15, Peter again says that they killed the prince of life, but God raised him from the dead. In Acts 3:18, God said through the prophets that the Christ would suffer. In Acts 13:27-31, Paul relates that the people of Jerusalem and their rulers fulfilled the prophets. Jesus was innocent, but they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him put to death. They carried out scripture foretold. Then, they took him down from the tree and buried him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead. He appeared to his companions and they became witnesses. We can see that the early tradition behind the passion story seems simply to have recognized the divine necessity of the innocent suffering and death of Jesus in fulfillment of the prophetic testimonies of scripture. We can contrast this early tradition with later theological interpretations that give the death of Jesus an expiatory significance.[1] However, this view of the death of Jesus corresponds well with Galatians 5:2, which says that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. The crucifixion is not so much the goal of his message and ministry as the result of his faithfulness to his prophetic call.[2] However, some scholars believe Jesus concluded that the Son of Man and Messiah must suffer. Thus, although Mark (and Matthew accepting it) has framed the prophecy that reflect post-Easter faith, there is no reason to think Jesus could not have thought creatively about his own fate, in light of the prophets, the death of John, and the hostility of Jewish leaders. Jesus may have surmised his fate, but the details may come from the early preaching of the church. Under this view, Jesus prepared the disciples with the concept of Messianic suffering and later exaltation. This would mean that Jesus made the unique combination of the Isaiah 53 passage with the apocalyptic hope regarding the Son of Man. In this view, the Son of Man, even as Isaiah 53 points to the later victory of the suffering servant, would find God exalting him.
Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah, and immediately Jesus turns around and challenges his understanding of whom the Messiah is. This is not what Peter expects to hear. Not only is the prediction of the passion decidedly unwelcome news, but Jesus presents it in a new manner. When speaking about the rule of God, Jesus usually spoke in parables, told stories, or gave demonstrations to his disciples and the crowds following him. Now, however, Jesus speaks of the approaching suffering plainly and openly. Jesus presents the passion as a cold, hard fact. This is a private revelation to the disciples. This lesson of Jesus is one that flies in the face of conventional concepts of success and gain, of winning and losing. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Maybe Peter was trying to protect his friend from pain. Maybe Peter wanted to keep Jesus focused upon being a prophet, teacher, and healer. Confronting the leaders of the Jewish people in Jerusalem was not part of the plan in the mind of Peter. He actively steps out of his tenuous identity as a disciple and begins to rebuke his master. The arrival of the Jewish Messiah was to herald the defeat of Israel's enemies, the victory of God's chosen people over all their oppressors. The Messiah was to be a powerful figure with a military answer to Israel's problems. The Messiah was not to be an unarmed teacher killed in the most shameful, humiliating form of execution the Romans had at their disposal. It seems hardly surprising that Peter takes exception to the scenario Jesus outlines. After all, Peter had finally caught on: He had confessed Jesus to be the Messiah. Instead of congratulating him on his insight or rewarding Peter for his faith, Jesus instead silenced him. Now, just as Peter was bursting with the Good News of the Messiah, Jesus completely deflates Peter's expectations by foretelling this Messiah's demeaning death. Thus, we can understand why Peter wants God to forbid what Jesus has said would happen. 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, urging him to accept the proper role of the disciple and to get out of the way, Satan! This suggests that the same temptation he experienced in the wilderness at the beginning of his public ministry is coming back through Peter. Jesus orders him back to a proper discipleship position and differentiates between the all‑too‑human concerns of Peter and the infinitely more important, eternal matters that are at stake.
History is full of legends of people who made such a deal with the devil. Faust, the protagonist of the classic German legend made famous by Goethe, exchanged his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The term "Faustian bargain" has ever since been a sophisticated way to question the meteoric rise of a person to fame and fortune who did not seem to pay his dues in diligence and hard work. Musicians are especially associated with the Faustian bargain. Niccolo Paganini, the late 18th-early 19th century violinist who many still believe was the greatest who ever lived, played the violin with such force and velocity that one Vienna concertgoer swore that he saw the devil helping Paganini play. The violinist's fiercely difficult works led others to believe that he was the son of the devil himself. Two legendary, early-20th century, Mississippi-delta guitarists, Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson (not related), are similarly associated with making a deal with the devil down at a crossroads, exchanging their souls for a wicked good ability to play the blues.
It is not just musicians and academics who have historically made deals, however. Clergy have historically been tempted to strike a bargain as well. Long before Faust, in the 6th century, a Christian named Eutychianus of Adana wrote of a cleric named Theophilus who, being disappointed in the advancement of his worldly career because of a meddling bishop, sold his soul to the devil so that he could become a bishop himself. Years later, fearful for his soul, he prayed to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness and got a reprieve.
Most famous of all, however, is the even older story of the one to whom the devil offered multiple deals which were all turned down. If anyone had reason to take a deal, it was Jesus, who knew he was facing a horrifyingly painful death if he kept doing and saying the things he had been doing and saying around Judea. If a deal with the devil is about skipping the hard parts, Jesus understood that his life was nothing but hard parts. He was not going to skip them.
This story occurs in Caesarea, the place where Romans built a temple to the god Pan. When we think of the devil we most often picture him in the form of a horned creature, half-man, half-animal with cloven hooves, a bifurcated tail and a pitchfork. Exchange the pitchfork for a flute and lose the tail and you've got a perfect image of the god Pan right there at the gates of Hades. While the Bible does not try to physically describe the devil, there near the cave of Pan the devil certainly rears his ugly head - not from the rock of the cave, but from the Rock upon which Jesus' own church was being built. Jesus will not only be bumping up against the gates of death and the realm of evil, he will be walking through them. Peter rightly named him as the Messiah, but Jesus' understanding of messiah was not one of triumphant accolades, throngs of followers and political power. Instead, Jesus defined "Messiah" as one who would save his people through his own suffering and death.
The easy way would have been to play on his popularity and avoid the pain, and the temptation to do so had been with Jesus all along. The devil had met him out there in the wilderness before all this began, and offered Jesus the chance to have it all, without any cost to himself (4:1-11). All Jesus would have to do is give up his mission and buy into the devil's agenda. As Bono sang it in U2's song "Vertigo," the devil essentially offers the proposition this way: "All of this, all of this can be yours. Just give me what I want, and no one gets hurt." Peter, fresh off his anointing as Jesus' own Rock, can't believe what he's hearing. Suffering? Killed? These aren't words you're supposed to associate with a Messiah. You have an opportunity here, Jesus, and so do we. None of that works if you're dead. There's an easier way and we'll help you find it. Like a man standing at the crossroads, Peter's ready to make a deal. Jesus, however, recognizes Old Scratch in Peter's rebuke. Jesus has a definite road to take and he won't make a deal with the devil to take the easier way out.
You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Peter has an ill-informed human view of things. The point is that the passion is a divine destiny. Jesus insists that the time has come for Peter to move out of the chronos time that keeps track of "human things" and that he move into kairos time as the scheme of "divine things" begins to unfold before them. The disciples’ education is continuing. Jesus’ reaction suggests he was tempted in much the same way as in the wilderness, that is, to accept popular definition of the Messiah. Jesus rejects both Peter's message and his attempt to assume the role of teacher. Jesus reasserts his leadership position by rebuking Peter and contrasting Peter's ill‑informed, earthbound view of these events with the divine plan.
One can already observe the double nature of the community of Jesus in Peter. Peter is like all persons who follow Jesus. We want to follow Jesus, but the way is often confusing. The temptation is always present to think in an ill-informed and earthly way, the way human beings usually think of things, rather than think from the perspective of eternity. God chooses the community, endowed with the gift of new knowledge, and under way toward the kingdom of heaven; at the same time, it continues to live in peril of temptations and even under threat of judgment. Just as Jesus calls Peter back to discipleship, where he must learn to think God’s thoughts, so too is the community. Peter represents every disciple. The gospel story already paves the way for a theology of the cross arising from experience, like Paul’s theology of suffering and defeat.
The private lesson in discipleship is now over. Yet, we must ponder this moment. One might think the identity of Jesus would become clearer. At the same time, they must willingly give up their ideas about the Messiah. From now on, the journey will become increasingly difficult.
Matthew 16:24-28 contains sayings on discipleship. They have to do with loyalty and fidelity by the followers of Jesus when faced with circumstances that call for courage and sacrifice. We learn some hard lessons about discipleship here. Yes, salvation is free and a gift. Yet, discipleship will cost you your life.[3] At this point, it becomes quite clear that theology is necessary to make preaching as hard for the preacher as it must be.[4] I will not try to soften the blow. Instead, I will try to make the point as sharp as I can.
In verses 24-26, Jesus offers discipleship advice for his followers to carry with them on this journey to Jerusalem. The profession by Peter is important, but the hinge in Mark occurs with the prediction of the passion for the Messiah and the pattern of discipleship it suggests. Having spoken to the disciples about his identity, he will now share them their identity as disciples and the cost of following him. This instruction occurs while they are on the way to Jerusalem. They are on the way to the cross. This road is one that every group of disciples in every generation must walk.[5] Let us remember that Jesus called the disciples, saying, “Follow me.” Jesus will now articulate some of the harsh realities that define a discipleship that has the cross in its sights.
Verse 24 has sources in Mark 8:34, found also in Luke 9:23, and in the material common to Matthew 10:38 and Luke 14:27. For some scholars, it has the historical problem that no evidence suggests that the cross became a symbol for self-denial or suffering outside of the later Christian context. Christians were facing persecution and martyrdom for their faith. Jesus provides the condition for following him.
The first condition to following Jesus is to deny the self. 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves. It would have been an odd phrase in Hebrew and Aramaic, for the ancient near east did not know of the notion of the free-standing self. In that culture, the self had its definition within and among a family group. The kinship group gave identity to and maintained the world in which the individual existed. To deny the self meant to give up your world. To deny the self meant to give up the human family that defines you. It also meant, of course, that your identity, which is always forming in a human life, receives its definition by your relationship to Jesus and the company of persons whom you join in following Jesus. We must renounce, withdraw, and annul our natural primary loyalty to self, leave the self constituted by yesterday and the person we had become, give up our previous form of existence, and step into the open, into the freedom that a moment can bring in following Jesus, regardless of the cost.[6]
The second condition of following Jesus on his journey toward Jerusalem: and take up their cross. The cross was a familiar form of public execution by the Romans, designed to keep conquered people submissive. The insistence of Jesus that a potential disciple must not only deny all old familiar ties but must be prepared to suffer horribly because of their identity as a disciple is unprecedented. After two millennia of "cross" imagery, our senses are not as shocked by this reference, as listeners to Jesus must have been. The pain, brutality, and degradation of a death by crucifixion ‑‑ including the spirit‑stripping practice of making the condemned "take up his cross" on this final death march to the execution site ‑‑ was a torture reserved for only the most despised of state criminals. Yet this is the very image Jesus chooses to represent as the fate of his most devoted disciples. This means that each disciple has a cross to take up, rather than to fear, hate, avoid, evade, or escape the affliction that falls on the disciple. Discipleship becomes a matter of each Christian carrying one’s own cross, suffering one’s own affliction, bearing the definite limitation of death that in one form or another falls on one’s own existence.[7] Paul said he died every day (I Corinthians 15:30). Jesus is already suggesting that to follow him means co-crucifixion, a theme we find in Paul as he refers to his own crucifixion so that his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him (Galatians 2:19-20). Thus, it pulls individuals even further away from the safety of a self that the kinship group defines.
I find it difficult, then, that any preacher would say that you cannot succeed by preaching the cross. A popular preacher supposedly said this. His argument was that people do not want to hear about the cross from the standpoint of discipleship because they have enough problems. In any case, following Jesus may well add to your problems. We need to find our cross, that for which we will spend our lives for the sake of the calling God has issued. Many people have discovered joy and happiness in life only when they chose to die to the selfish pursuit of happiness. They have found joy in discovering a mission that will require sacrifice for something grand and meaningful. Here is an analogy. Diamonds do not dazzle with beauty unless they are cut. When cut, the rays of the sun fall on them and make them shine with wonderful colors. In an analogous way, when we are cut by the cross, we can shine as jewels as we participate in the mission of following Jesus in displaying the rule of God.[8]
Discipleship is a matter of forming a new identity in the destiny of Jesus. The bearing of your cross is the consequence of the special calling and sending we receive from God. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross, so the disciple follows in that destiny.[9] Just as following Jesus means denial, so also it means death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said in his Cost of Discipleship, that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come to him and die. Thomas à Kempis wrote,
In the Cross is salvation;
in the Cross is life;
in the Cross is protection against our enemies;
in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness;
in the Cross is strength of mind;
in the Cross is joy of spirit;
in the Cross is excellence of virtue;
in the Cross is perfection of holiness.
There is no salvation of soul,
nor hope of eternal life,
save in the Cross. (The Inner Life)
"If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you"
(The Imitation of Christ, 2.12.5).
The third condition: and follow me. In context, Peter must be the first to do this, of course. Yet, the way of the cross was for the multitudes and not just for the disciples. This saying makes it clear that we cannot separate Christology and discipleship. To follow Christ involves denial of self in the sense of yielding freely to this total service and therefore refusal to save their lives for themselves. For those who had not heard the private prediction of Jesus concerning his suffering, death and resurrection, these words must have shocked them to their shoes. Jesus lays out requirements for discipleship that go far beyond any usual conversion practices. Jewish proselytes had to decide to accept Jewish faith and law freely, willingly rejecting old pagan relationships and acquaintances. Following Jesus in this service means co-crucifixion with Jesus. Paul, in fact, suggests this in Galatians 2:19-20, where he says that he has been crucified with Christ so that now, his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him. The focus on discipleship is identification with the destiny of Jesus. This view is in keeping with the sayings of Jesus about the discipleship of the cross, in which Jesus required his disciples to bear his cross, but only as far as they were to bear their own. The bearing of their cross is the consequence of the special calling and sending they received from God. Mark makes clear that Christology and discipleship are inseparable, and that the way of Jesus to the cross is also the way the disciple must follow.[10]
C.S. Lewis wrote (The Four Loves) that if you would love you would suffer. We cannot even love a dog without at one point or another feeling the pain of loss, assuming we outlive the dog. The greatest of all things-love-is itself most intimately bound with suffering. It is a poignant irony, I think. In our attempt to avoid suffering, we cut ourselves off from the one thing that can mitigate it: each other. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain. When we know that the way of love, this exodus, this going out of oneself, is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others and becomes more human. People who have consistently avoided suffering do not understand other people. They become hard and selfish. We have no literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy. We have only moral answers. Yes, in the face of suffering at the hands of other human beings we may despair. Yet, hope also comes from other human beings.[11]
In verses 25-26, Jesus offers those who would confess him to be Messiah a ringing challenge. True disciples must give up their "lives," their primary commitment to a kinship group, and instead willingly make God their final authority. Only this kind of transformation will bring them eternal life. That is the only deal that a disciple can take. Focus on saving your own life and making it easier, and you will lose in the end. Focus on giving away your life by going down this path with Jesus, and you will find real life and not the kind that is artificially and temporarily inflated by the attractiveness of a devilish deal.
In verse 25, having its source in Mark 8:35 and also found in Luke 9:24 and John 12:21, is a saying on saving one’s life, has its earliest form in the version in Matthew 10:39, which we also find in Luke 17:33. 25 For those who want to save their life (psyche, life, soul, self) will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. Given the context of the taking up the cross, a physical reference is possible here. I hope we can see the paradoxical nature of saying that in order to find life we must lose it. We cannot have fullness of life by preserving a life defined by the past. We can see here the supreme value of the soul or the true self. We cannot put a price on it. Setting aside our definition of the self will lead to happiness and real living. Such a life is meaningful. As the Prayer of Saint Francis puts it, “For it is in dying to self, that we are born to eternal life.” When we choose the self, we lose what we seek.[12] We renounce the self in favor of Jesus.[13] If we concern ourselves with the self in our practice of discipleship, we will miss the very thing discipleship offers. You will achieve the desire of your heart as a follower of Jesus if you lose your focus upon the self.[14] The first person to live out this pattern was Jesus. Jesus saved his life at the cost of proclaiming his message of the rule of God. Had he saved his life, he would have made himself independent of God. He would not have been the Son by an unending finite existence. Jesus chose an earthly existence consumed in divine service. He did not cling to his life. He showed obedience to the mission, regardless of the consequences.[15] Yet, we might also ponder the matter of personal identity that animates every individual life. We have a natural desire for self-preservation. We recognize the hint of truth in the saying that to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.[16] How can one save one’s life by losing it? “Soul,” meaning even if death is the result, the disciples has preserved the true self. We are not ourselves if we exalt ourselves by loving, choosing, willing, asserting, and maintaining ourselves. God has created us for the glory of God. We have our source in God. If we follow the pattern of losing ourselves, we are moving toward God. We are more fully human as we are open to God. If we choose the self-contained self, we miss the very thing we seek. We lose what we want to save.[17] We lose the desire of our hearts.
26a Verse 26a is a saying, responding the question, what is good? The source is Mark 8:36, also found in Luke 9:25. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Acquiring the whole world but losing the soul would be a bad exchange. The true self, the soul, is beyond all value. One can freely give it and freely receive it. 26bOr what will they give in return for their life? The saying is part of the common wisdom of the time and is from Mark 8:37. Adolf Harnack thought with good reason that he had found a Magna Carta of the message of the infinite value of every human soul.[18] We need to give up our citizenship in the world of “me.” Our devotion needs to be to the people and tasks of our lives in order to find life. Much of modern notions of self find their critique here. Many parts of psychology have faith in the pursuit of selfhood as we form our identity. Yet, excessive focusing on our identity is a deformation of the theme of a human life. The goods and tasks of our lives and our openness to God need to be primary and therefore the source of our identity. We can see a parallel in Plato as he suggested that the upright and good are happy, while the pursuit of happiness for its own sake is egocentric and leads us astray. Only those who seek the good for its own sake will find happiness and identity (Gorgias 491bff, especially 506c.7ff and 470e.9f).[19]
These discipleship statements stand at the center of the message of Mark, and they need to stand at the center of the proclamation of the church today. Following Jesus is difficult when our definitions of power and success get in the way. If we, as his followers, try to tell him what he should or should not do, as Peter was attempting, then we have not denied ourselves. If we do not continue with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, anticipating the cross and its sufferings, with our own cross bar across our backs, then we are not following. It is only after we have turned in our understandings of power and success from a worldly perspective and exchanged them for a power that denies itself, and a success that manifests itself in sacrifice, that we see the role faith plays in this passage.
None of us wants to lose something precious. Our lives are precious to us, or at least, they should be. If it gives us a sense of security, and we lose it, we will become anxious. Security is important to us.
The notion of denying self is difficult for many people in the West today. I think the difficulty arises from at least two fronts. One is that we have learned how fascinating self is. Whether in spiritual formation or in psychology, we explore the richness and fullness of the self. Two is that studies in addictive and co-dependent behavior have taught us that too often we get ourselves in relationships in which we sacrifice ourselves for no redemptive purpose. Each of these insights makes us justly suspicious of any call to self-denial.
Yet, do you not agree that if we focus too much upon self, if we protect self too much, if we seek security in self, we open ourselves to the possibility of losing who we are? I understand it seems paradoxical. Yet, focusing on saving our lives may well derive from fear. Losing ourselves may well arise out of faith. A large part of learning what you really want in life is learning what you are willing to give up in order to get it.[20] We may find our purpose in life as we take up the symbol of punishment, the cross. We may find our true self as we lose ourselves in following Jesus.
Clearly, such reflections do not lead to safety and security in the traditional sense. We are not in as much control. Yet, I wonder if this type of insecurity may not lead to the greatest security of all – eternal life. It may well be that the greatest lesson one learns in life is that God alone is enough for true life. The lessons we learn in life may lead to nothing other than the crowning discovery of Christian life, that God is enough.[21]
Jesus is saying that we should not value anything more highly than discipleship — even our own lives. Following Jesus is supposed to be our Number One priority, higher than success, security, wealth, health, power, and prestige.
A little boy had a sister who needed a blood transfusion. The boy had recovered from the same disease two years before. Her only chance for recovery was to have a transfusion from someone who had recovered from the disease. The boy had the same rare blood type and recovered from the disease. He would be the ideal donor. The doctor asked if he would be willing to do this. At first, the boy hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Eventually, he said, "Sure, for my sister." Attendants wheeled brother and sister into a hospital room. They were side by side. They did not speak, but when their eyes met, the boy smiled at his sister. He was so healthy, while she was very pale and sickly. The nurse put the needle into the arm of the boy, and his smile faded. He watched his blood flow into the tube. When the ordeal was almost over, his voice slightly shaky, he said, "Doctor, when do I die?" Only then did the doctor realize why the boy hesitated, and why his lip trembled. In that moment, he made a great decision.[22]
John Wesley, on his 85th birthday, said that for the rest of his days he wanted to spend to the praise of Jesus Christ, who died to redeem the world. Many or few, he owed and devoted the rest of his days to Christ.
On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. On the night before his death, he gave a speech in which he said, "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life -- longevity has its place. However, I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. Moreover, he has allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land."
Garrison Keillor tells of some wayward Catholics who return to their hometown, Lake Woebegon, on Christmas Eve. They are spiritual exiles who, in having left home and church in order to find themselves, return to discover their loss.
Dozens of exiles returned for Christmas. At Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, Father Emil roused himself from bed, where he’s been down with cancer since Columbus Day, and said Christmas Eve Mass. He was inspired by the sight of all the lapsed Catholics parading into church with their unbaptized children, and he gave them a hard homily, strolling right down into the congregation.
“Shame. Shame on us for leaving what we were given that was true and good,” he said. “To receive a great treasure in our younger days and to abandon it so that we can lie down in the mud with swine.” He stood, one hand on the back of a pew, and everyone in that pew – children of this church who grew up and moved away and did well and now tell humorous stories at parties about Father Emil and what it was like to grow up Catholic – all of them shuddered a little, afraid he might grab them by their Harris-tweed collars and stand them up and ask them questions. “What a shame. What a shame.”
They came for Christmas, to hear music, and see the candles, and smell incense, and feel hopeful, and here was their old priest with hair in his ears whacking them around – was it a brain cancer he had? Shame, shame on us. He looked around at all the little children he’d given first communion to, now grown heavy and prosperous, sad and indolent, but clever enough to explain their indolence and sadness as a rebellion against orthodoxy, a protest, adventurous, intellectual, which really was only dullness of spirit.
He stopped. It was so quiet you could hear them not breathing. Then he said that this was why Our Lord had come, to rescue us from dullness of spirit, and so the shepherds had found and so shall we, and then it was Christmas again.[23]
In reading the philosopher Spinoza, in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), I wrote down the following reaction to one criticism he had of the church of his day. As a Christian, I find it sad, but also true, that persons who profess their Christianity, and therefore commit themselves to love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all people, should also quarrel with such “rancorous animosity,” displaying toward each other “such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues they claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith.” Well, such were the accusations he made against the church of his day. Could it also be true of us?
Let us allow our lives do the talking. Michener, in The Source, has one character comment, “If that man had a different God, he would be a different man.” I hope that statement is true of us.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has a wonderful prayer with this theme.
O Lord, who has taught us that to gain the whole world and to lose our souls is great folly, grant us the grace so to lose ourselves that we may truly find ourselves anew in the life of grace, and so to forget ourselves that we may be remembered in your kingdom.
[1]
[2]
[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer
[4] Gerhard Ebeling (Word and Faith, p. 424.)
[5] Paul Minear
[6]
[7]
[8] Inspired by Sadhu Sundar Singh.
[9]
[10]
[11] Elie Wiesel
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16] Oscar Wilde
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20] Sidney Howard
[21] Hannah Whitall Smith, God Is Enough, 1.
[22] Robert Coleman, Written in Blood.
[23] (Garrison Keillor, “Exiles” in Listening for God, Paula J. Carlson and Peter S. Hawkins, eds. [Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994], pp. 199–120.For some scholars, Jesus could not have held the position that the Son of Man would come to judge. The basis of the saying is the apocalyptic expectation the Son of Man would come and sit in judgment on the world. With a message that is paralleled in Revelation 22:12, Jesus promises his glorious return and holds out what may be interpreted as either a warning or a consolation to his listeners. To those who reject the Son of Man, Jesus' promise smacks of future judgment. To those who suffer for Christ's sake, there is the promise of eternal comfort and reward. Such a promise suggests the vindication by God of the suffering Son of Man, who becomes the eschatological judge, who will reward and punish "for what has been done." Verse 28 is a saying concerning the kingdom, that some standing her will see its arrival. The source is Mark. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” The saying could suggest that the rule of God arrives in Jesus’ activities as an exorcist. The nearness of the coming kingdom here functions as encouragement to remain faithful, and to follow the path of Jesus. Exactly what the "some standing here" will "see" has been variously understood, with the Parousia being problematic since it obviously did not occur during the first century. Other visions of "the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" may include the transfiguration, the resurrection or the power of Christ at Pentecost.
[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 416.
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 438.
[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer
[4] Gerhard Ebeling (Word and Faith, p. 424.)
[5] Paul Minear
[6] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 539-40.
[7] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[8] Inspired by Sadhu Sundar Singh.
[9] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[10] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[11] Elie Wiesel
[12] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [60.2] 421.
[13] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.1 [63.1] 744.
[14] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.3 [71.6] 652.
[15] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 374-5.
[16] Oscar Wilde
[17] Barth Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.5] 639, IV.1 [60.2] 421.
[18] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) III.4 [55.1] 387.
[19] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 249.
[20] Sidney Howard
[21] Hannah Whitall Smith, God Is Enough, 1.
[22] Robert Coleman, Written in Blood.
[23] (Garrison Keillor, “Exiles” in Listening for God, Paula J. Carlson and Peter S. Hawkins, eds. [Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994], pp. 199–120.
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