Jesus asks his disciples to follow him. The first time he asks was the invitation to
be fishers of men. Mark 1:16-20
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Rabbis are respected
·
Rabbis preserved the culture and traditions
·
Only the best students become disciples/Rabbis
[Have 4 or 5 random people stand up to represent various rabbis. Have the people surrounding them stand up as
their students. Have some sit down as “wash
out” of the program. The one or two left are the future rabbis.]
Simon and Andrew, James and John were getting the chance of
a lifetime to follow any rabbi. But Jesus
is special isn’t he? His disciples get
plenty of clues of how special he is. At
one moment they seem like they get it and in the next, it seems like they are
clueless. But every failure is a
teaching opportunity. We read from scripture
and we see the failures of the disciple of Jesus and we see ourselves. At least I see myself. And we hear the teachings of Jesus in
response and so we have this ongoing dialogue with scripture that speaks to our
lives. It speaks to our failures and it
gives us a direction and it gives us hope.
The ones that Jesus hand-picked to be his disciples are just as big a
screw up as I am. Hallelujah!
Jesus asks us to
follow him even though we are flawed. He
asks us to follow him even though we are broken. Or, another way to think about it: He asks us
to follow him because we are flawed
and broken. Jesus offers healing. Jesus
offers restoration. Jesus offers
abundant/ eternal life. Jesus offers salvation. You’d be crazy not to take that offer.
But then there is the second question: which is really just a clarification of the
first. “If any want to become my
followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” When we follow our rabbi, we follow very
closely. When we follow we do as he
does. We learn his teachings. We do as
he commands. If we are ashamed of our
rabbi and his teachings; if we distance our self from them in public; if we
only want the benefit of eternal life and ignore the commands of Christ,
scripture says he will be ashamed of us when he comes in the glory if the
Father and the holy angels.
The two questions are.
Will you follow Jesus? And will you take up your cross?
We all know what a cross is.
But what does Jesus mean?
The cross is not some trinket. The cross is not some
beautiful piece of jewelry that gives us warm fuzzy feelings. The cross was and
instrument of execution. The cross is an
ugly thing. Execution is an ugly, ugly
thing. When the king’s edict sent Daniel into the Lion’s den He knew it was a
terrible thing. A criminal was put on
the cross not just to kill but also to punish; and not only to punish but to be
made an example of because it was a slow, ugly, public death.
So when Jesus “let them take up their cross and follow me.” When
he says take up your cross, it wasn’t that he was saying, “Take up your social
responsibility and live in that and put my label on it and call it Christian so
that you feel better about yourself. It’s
not about the extra charity that we do. Our
cross is not even the problems that we have to deal with in this life. Those things are not the cross that Jesus is
telling us to take up. Jesus is talking about that ugly thing that he has seen
his fellow Jews hanging on. He’s talking
about that thing that human flesh gets tacked to and slowly loses its strength
and dies.
So what does Jesus mean when he says we need to take up our
cross? Does he mean that we should go and get our own cross and die on it? Not literally. But he is saying that we need
to let our sense of ‘self’ die. Whatever
will get us to get our minds off ourselves and our own lives and set our minds
on the big picture, on God’s picture. Whatever can do that in our life is our
cross. The real cross is indiscriminant.
It’s not your cross. All crosses
do the same job really. Jesus wasn’t
saying look for your ministry. He wasn’t
saying look for your own path. He was
saying, “Follow me.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.” And you need to
die to yourself and to your way and your priorities before you can truly follow
me. This was right after Peter’s rebuke of him and Jesus said “get behind me
Satan.” Peter was thinking of earthly things. Those who want to save their life
will lose it.
If we try to hold on to this life, if try to hold on to this
fleshly existence and everything that is in this world, it will slip through
our fingers. Sooner or later we will all
die. There is nothing that we can do to make ourselves immortal. We can have
all the riches in the world and it won’t matter because we will all die. Eternity is a long time.
Jesus offers us eternal life. Jesus offers us abundant life.
In fact Jesus is the source of life
itself. It’s a gift. We cannot earn it,
buy it or seize it. We can only receive it
as a gift. And the things that we have
in this life are a gift so what can we possibly give, what could we possibly
offer God in return for life when everything is from him in the first
place? Nothing that we can possibly possess
can even remotely measure up to the gift of life that Jesus offers.
Jesus says those who are ashamed of me I will be ashamed of
them. But there is a flipside to that
coin. Those who proudly proclaim the
gospel of Jesus Christ, who live into Jesus call to abandon their nets and fish
for people, for people who crucify all their selfish desires and put Jesus
first that’s who Jesus will lift up when he comes in the Father’s glory.
That’s the second question. It’s that living beyond
ourselves question. Both question need
to be affirmed.
We need to follow Jesus in this world serving the needs of
those around us and demonstrating love. And we also need to follow Jesus in a
way that takes us beyond ourselves.
Jesus asks us to trust in him.
Two question. Follow Jesus?
Take up your cross?
Know Christ? Make him Known?
So, how is it with you today? The only way to make Christ known
is to have Christ living in you. The only
way to do that is to take up the cross of Christ. Would you pray with me?
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