"The Theology of the Cross" based on Mark 9:2-9
The Transfiguration of Our
Lord,
Pastor Troy Slater - Our
Peter is of course that
disciple that we all love to pick on. After all he had a tendency to
speak from his heart without thinking about what he was saying. This
meant that when he said something right, he was absolutely brilliant. But
on the other hand, when he was wrong, he was absolutely pathetic. There
wasn't a whole lot of middle ground with Peter.
And in fact the
verses leading up to today's Gospel reading illustrate this point very
well. For in those verses Jesus had taken the disciples way up north to
Caesarea Philippi in order to prepare them for His upcoming suffering, death and
resurrection. He was getting them away
from the crowds and giving them some private instruction. But during that
instruction He asked His disciples, "Who
do you say that I am?" "What's
your verdict? Who am I?" And here Peter replies, "You are the Christ."
And of course here Peter was absolutely right, wasn't he? Here is one of those times when Peter gets an
A+. "You are the Christ." Peter's right on.
But unfortunately,
that would quickly change just three verses later. For after Peter made this most excellent
confession, Mark tells us that Jesus "then
began to teach them that the Son of
Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and
teacher of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise
again." But Peter takes Jesus
aside and "begins to rebuke
Him", Mark tells us. "No
Jesus, this shall never happen to you!
Quit talking all this nonsense about suffering and rejection and
death. This shall never happen to you!"
But Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Get
behind me, Satan! You do not have in
mind the things of God, but the things of men." In other words, here Peter gets a big
zero. In only three verses he goes from absolutely brilliant to
absolutely pathetic. …
But you know the thing
about Peter is that he actually does or says the things that everyone else is
thinking but is afraid to do or to say.
Maybe that's why Peter is the favorite disciple of so many. We can all relate to him for he says what we
think. I mean the fact of the matter is that we all get pretty excited
about the God who speaks from the burning bush or thunders from Sinai. We
like it that Jesus went around healing the sick and casting out demons - I mean
who doesn't want to follow someone who can do things like that. We really
like it when He puts those bullies, the Sadducees, scribes, and Pharisees in
their place. We all like the Jesus who lights up the mountaintop at His
transfiguration as we read about in today's Gospel. We all like the Jesus
whose Father thunders from the cloud and tells us that Jesus is His Son.
We like a God who is large and in charge - who can take care of our every
problem. We like that kind of power and majesty. We like an awesome
God who has thunder in His footsteps and lightning in His fists. We like
our sovereign God. We like the God of
the mountaintop. …
But a problem comes
when that God says that He's going to defeat sin, death, and the power of the
devil not by becoming large and in charge, but rather by becoming a humble,
rejected, suffering servant. The problem
comes when He tells us He is going to allow mere mortal men to arrest Him and to
beat Him up. The problem comes when He tells
us that mere mortal men will nail him up to some pieces of wood and let Him
hang there until He's dead. The problem comes when He tells us life won't
always be easy - when He fails to promise us a life of health and wealth, peace
and prosperity. That's when we want to
join Peter and scold Jesus for talking crazy.
I mean after all, what kind of a Savior is that? What kind of a God is it that talks about …
crosses?
Truth is we would
much rather stay on the mountain top.
That mountain top of glory. We
would like to join Peter and set-up three tents - camp out there awhile -
remain there. That is the kind of religion
that makes sense to the human mind, right?
We want a God who takes us out of the valleys, out of the trouble, out
of the pains, away from the sufferings and the hardships; a God who insulates us
from death. We want a God who will take
us onto the mountaintops and keep us there, don't we? In other words we want a theology of glory. A theology of glory. …
But you see there's
a problem with the theology of glory - there's a problem with staying on that
mountaintop. And actually we can even
see this problem in our Gospel reading for today. For you see even while Peter was proposing
the three tents, God the Father spoke and declared Jesus as His beloved
Son. And this, well it terrified the disciples as Mark tells us to the
point that they fell on their faces as Matthew tells us in his gospel. But
you see this is a common reaction when any mere mortal stands in the presence
of a holy God. For the Bible has numerous examples of people who met God
face-to-face and who then fell on their faces in terror. Consider Isaiah. Brought into the very presence of God - into
the very Holy of Holies he cried out in fear, "Woe to me for I'm a dead
man. I am a man of unclean lips from a
people of unclean lips and I have seen the Holy One. Woe to me, I'm a dead man." You see we cannot experience the absolute
perfection of God's glorious presence. We
cannot stand before a Holy God and live.
But that's what a
theology of glory tries to do. It
ignores the fact that there's a problem - a big problem. And that problem is, "Woe to me for I'm
a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips." That problem is what we often call sin. And unless that's taken care of there can be
no glory. Unless sin is taken care of there
can be no mountaintop. …
And of course God
knows this. And so it is that He does
not give us a theology of glory. Knowing what we need, not what we want,
He doesn't give us a theology of glory.
Rather He gives us a theology of the cross. He gives us a theology
that takes us from the mount of transfiguration and to Mt. Calvary - Golgotha,
the place of the skull. He gives us a
theology that involves pain and suffering, sweat and blood; a theology that
involves death and burial. The writer of
Hebrews states, "without the
shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." No blood - no forgiveness. No death - no glory for us. And so God gave blood for forgiveness. He gave His blood into death for our
forgiveness. God gives us the cross.
And so, as we
prepare to begin our Lenten journey this week, we remember that it is ONLY
through that suffering and death on the cross that Jesus takes care of our
problem. It is only by Jesus death on
the cross and that blood that He shed that sin is taken care of, that
forgiveness is offered, that life with God is given. Only Jesus - by His cross - only Jesus can offer
us the ability to stand before God without fear. It is only by Jesus and His cross that we can
look forward to the glory.
You see that's why, as
they were going down the mount of transfiguration, that's why Jesus told His
disciples - Peter, James and John - not to tell anyone what they had seen until
He had risen from the dead. It would
only be after His resurrection from death that the disciples would finally -
COULD finally - understand the true mission of the Christ. Only then could Peter, James, and John
properly tell about their experience on the mountain when Jesus showed them a
bit of heaven. Only then could they properly
understand and proclaim that before there could be glory, there first HAD to be
the cross. It was only after the cross
and empty grave that they could properly tell anyone that before there could be
victory, there first had to be suffering; before there could be glorious life
with God, there first had to be a brutal and bloody death by Jesus.
Yes the cross was
necessary. The cross was necessary. The cross was no accident; no unfortunate
event that didn't have to be. It had to
be for us. The cross had to be, for God
in His love chose to take care of our problem - THE problem of our sin. Yes the cross was necessary.
And so it is necessary that we now follow
a crucified Lord. Like with little Jax
here this morning, we have been placed on the path of following a crucified
Lord. And while we certainly don't know
the specifics of that path that the Lord has laid out for each of us, we don't
know what our life may hold - we can be sure that there will be suffering,
there will be pain, there will be death.
We do have to go down from the mountain and into the valleys. You can be sure of it. But you we can also be sure that the glory
will come. It will. Heaven will come. But not yet.
Not yet. For now we must travel
down from the mountaintop back into the valleys. We go back down until our last hour comes and
our Father in heaven gives us a blessed end and carries us from this valley of
sorrows to Himself in heaven.
Yes first the cross, then the
glory. That's how it was for Jesus, and
thanks be to Jesus and HIS cross, that's how it is - that's how it HAS to be for
us also. Amen.