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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading about the price of the soul. You may be seated. Some of you have already faced in your life some very difficult revelations given to you or very painful revelations by a doctor giving you a diagnosis of something physically painful. Whether it’s Parkinson’s or ALS or cancer or diabetes or infertility or heart disease, whenever you get that information and you digest it inwardly, the very last thing you need or desire when that doctor is talking to you is for him to sugarcoat some treatment plan for you or to give you some positive thinking therapy that’s unfounded upon anything. No, when you’re facing such critical things in your life, you want concise, clear truth. You want to have in front of you everything that’s going to happen. You don’t want surprises.
Since that’s how you and I expect to be treated when it comes to our physical body, which, by the way, is not eternal, how much more do you and I need and crave clear, concise truth when it has to do with our soul, which lives eternally? Thus, this morning’s text—the serious prognosis of your problem and my problem by our Lord—and more importantly, the very serious and aggressive treatment to fix what is in part of us and our existence in this world and our soul which lives forever.
In fact, at the very beginning of the text, it is the first time Jesus talks about something that must, divine necessity, cannot overlook it, must complete it, kind of a must. And he says, the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem. The Son of Man must suffer many things. The Son of Man must die. The Son of Man must be raised on the third day. There are no other options. There are no other possibilities for the treatment of your and my disease. It must be that way.
Now, the first thing you and I can think about when we deal with this must aspect of it, we don’t think too much about, “Oh well sure that makes sense.” Jesus lived, he died, he rose again. But that’s assuming that it’s not that ugly inside of you. So, for example, if you were going to have some cancer treatment and all of these things were laid out for you and all of the byproducts of having that treatment, you would say, “Okay, that’s what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to do it.”
Peter said, “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Hold on. Time out.” Peter said, “Lord, if evil is really evil… Then you need to come down here to this world and utterly decimate it to show you are God. You need to come down here and utterly destroy it, crush it, obliterate it, and show very clearly you’re not even on the same level as evil.” That’s what Peter was saying when he said, “No, no, no, no, no, Lord, not you, it shall not be.” Peter was sugarcoating truth, wasn’t he? Because there’s no other way around it. Such a plan that Peter had in his mind made sense to his reason. And you know to whom else it makes sense? To you. Think about how you deny what God has revealed and how he should fix things.
If he’s going to fix things and your damnation is what he fixes, something’s got to be damned for you. Someone has to be damned for you. That’s Jesus. If he’s going to fix the mouth that is on our face that says things that cut people to the heart, he’s got to have someone not only speak words always appropriate but keep the mouth shut when it’s also appropriate. If he’s going to fix the ears that have heard horrible things said, he’s got to also hear those horrible things for you and not respond with hatred in his mind. That’s not our way. That’s God’s way. If you and I want to fix something, we want to see it completely fixed.
He fixes us, and we still live with sin. He fixes you, and you still have to say, “I’m sorry.” He makes you new, and you still have to say, “I forgive you” to one another. It’s not what Peter thought. It is what God revealed. And that’s why it was told to Peter, “Peter, you have in mind the things of man.” Amen. And the things of man are in complete opposition to the things of God. The two are not coexisting equally. They are a complete opposite of one another.
In fact, so strongly does Jesus handle Peter, and I hope you saw that, Peter was not handled by Jesus with kid gloves. It wasn’t like, “Peter, come on, you’re missing the point here, buddy, come on.” He didn’t soft pedal it with Peter. He said, “Get behind me, Satan.” Wow, okay, lighten up, Lord. You don’t have to get so serious. It’s a serious matter because that’s how your and my mind works, and that’s how Satan appeals to your and my mind. Amen. He says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” And it’s the same exact phraseology as when Jesus, being tempted in the wilderness, says, “Be gone, Satan.” Harsh. Clear, but harsh.
Kind of like how you want to be treated if your body is dealing with some cancer, multiple sclerosis, infertility, and who knows what else. You want that blunt truth. We don’t like it always, but it is what brings life. How funny. This thing that God reveals to these disciples was meant not to be understood with their mind, but to be believed by faith. Let me say that again. What Jesus revealed to these disciples were to be believed. It was to be believed, not to be understood. And yet, what were they struggling with? Trying to understand it?
When Jesus spoke these words, his Holy Spirit accompanied those words to enable them to believe. But for them to believe, they also have to deny whom? Satan, their self. The greatest enemy that you have is not Satan. Satan can’t touch you. The greatest enemy you have is yourself, your sinful flesh. It’s what Satan appeals to. It’s the greatest enemy. It is what Peter did not want to deny. It is what Jesus denied completely and perfectly all throughout his life.
For all the times when we give in, this life that Jesus said is necessary to go to Jerusalem, to suffer the rejection, to be killed, to be raised to life, is the life of the cross, not a life of glory. Glory comes, as it did for Jesus when he was taken into heaven. But glory is not this world. This world for you and me, who have been bound to him as his disciples, is the life of the cross. It is the life of the cross.
That’s why Jesus went from saying, “It’s necessary and I must live and do these things,” and he goes from that paragraph to the next paragraph when he says, “If you want to be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me.” You’re his disciple. You’re his beloved children. You follow him. He’s giving you this clear, concise truth of your life in him. So why do we not embrace it? Why do we balk at it? Why do we not say, “Ah, that’s exactly what I needed to hear,” but instead go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s a little serious and heavy?” Because it has to do with the very part of you that’s eternal. That’s your soul. Whoa.
And it has to do with the very part of you that Jesus was damned for and brought salvation for. He died for you, not for a concept, not for an idea, but for you, body and soul, to redeem both body and soul. Now, this cross that we bear daily is not a matter of a revelation today. This cross life is what begets us earthly blessing. It’s not as if, “Well, if I live this way, if I take up my cross daily and follow him, I’m going to be given great gifts by God.”
Didn’t seem to work for Jesus, did it? He had to live with other people. He had to sleep under the stars. He had to rely upon other people’s goodness to feed him. And he had to have someone else’s grave in which to be buried. It’s not about earthly blessings. This principle is about the life that you and I have been put into. This life of the cross is not about our cancer, our infertility, our multiple sclerosis, our ALS, our Parkinson’s, our heart disease, or anything else. Those are all common ailments to all people, whether they are God’s child or whether they’re not. Those are not the crosses you bear.
The cross you bear is that you and I have to deny ourself in that. It’s our mortal enemy, our self. It’s the daily practice and the daily habit of denying ourselves and following where Christ leads us. That’s what the life of the cross is. And just like how Jesus treated Peter, he in essence said, “Peter, you either live as my disciple or you hinder me.” That’s what the text said. You either live as my child or you hinder me. We either live as God’s child and as his disciple, or we live as one who interferes and follows Satan instead. There is not a both and. It’s an either or.
So how did our Lord deal with the evil in this world? And I’m not talking about disease. I’m talking about the evil that’s within you and me. And how did he deal with the evil that’s not only in this world, but the evil that is also continually confronting us? He deals with it not by completely enveloping it in a glory-filled fashion, but he submits to it and allows it to kill him. He pays for it and for you. That’s what he does. Completely opposite of how you and I would think. His humble obedience was how he defeated evil. Not by proud defiance against evil, but by humble obedience to the Father.
Now, lest this seem to be overwhelming to you and me, step back for a moment. Remember, when Jesus said these words to the apostles, he did not say it without his Holy Spirit accompanying it and giving them the ability to believe these promises. When Jesus speaks these words to you, he sets you up for success in faithfulness because he comes to you here in this hospital—the church and the divine service. This is not a gymnasium where you come here healthy and leave here healthier. You come here dying and you’ll leave here still dying. But your soul lives. You’re going to watch your bodies change. And yet you grow in faith.
It’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? This is not a place where you come in and leave differently on the outside. This is completely the opposite. You come in looking one way, you leave looking the exact same way. But something has been done inside of you, hasn’t it? Because here’s where our stubbornness and our pride and our defiance are dealt with. And here is where he instills within you a hope, a bright hope for your future. The glory that awaits you. The new body that will be yours. The end of the diseases with which we struggle and cry over. Here’s where that hope is instilled in you. Nowhere else. Because you know it was dealt with in Christ.
And here is where your sin, with which you’ve got to live with when you leave here, has been dealt with. Here is where your own thoughts of yourself have been dealt with that you leave here refreshed, different. Yes, this life of the cross is a struggle. It’s a battle. But mind you, it is a battle where we know we win. It is a battle where we know we win.
Yes, this life is filled with failures. Our life living as his disciple is filled with mistakes and shortcomings. But every one of those failures, mistakes, and shortcomings have been covered today with his completion by humbly obeying God for you. They’ve been covered and paid for by him dying, as the very thing he mentioned to you. We win, and Satan loses, and our flesh dies. And we’re freed of it—the weight that hangs around our neck with which we struggle.
And he does so by going to Jerusalem, by suffering at the hands of those, by dying for you and by rising for you. That’s the prognosis and the aggressive treatment for you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.