Pastor Sarah R. Cordray
Luther Memorial Church
March 1, 2015
Mark 8.31-38
Losing Life for Jesus’ Sake
As we wander in the wilderness during this season of Lent, we wander and seek for the
good life to live. We seek for answers to how we can best find this good life and we do
not have to look far. With over 5,000 advertising images that bombard us daily, it is easy
to get some answers. Here’s just a few:
If you start your morning eating Shredded Wheat, you will “live from the heart.”
If you put on your Reebok shoes before you go, you will “be more human.”
If you stop by First National bank on your way to work, “belonging has never felt better.”
If you have your lunch at Burger King, you can “have it your way.”
And if you drink a Dr. Pepper with your lunch, you will “always be one of a kind.”
But if you do decide to have a Diet Coke instead, you can at least “regret nothing.”
While at work doing a difficult project and if you use Apple computers, then you will
“think different.”
But don’t forget that if you pick up on your way home Divine chocolate bars, you will
have a “love that grows.”
And if you do need a vacation and are still looking for the good life, then you can fly to
India where they will be “eternally yours.”
We laugh because we know it is true. These countless ad slogans get into our heads
and begin to trick us into thinking we can acquire the good life…we can accumulate and
gain for ourselves whatever we need to have the best life possible. AND sadly, we try.
We live like consumers trying to buy the good life. To us with these messages in our
head Jesus says, “For what will it profit them to gain (or in our words-buy) the whole
world and forfeit their life?”
To forfeit means receiving a fine or a penalty for wrongdoing or neglect. When we live
as consumers, we forfeit the God-given life given to us. We actually neglect the very
core of who God created us to be. When we think that we can gain or buy and then
save our own life, we forfeit the life that God longs to give us in Jesus Christ.
God longs to give us life daily, but not through our buying power or built up strength.
God longs to give us life through our weakness and vulnerability. God longs to give us
life through giving it all away…through losing. Losing our life—all we’ve built and
gained—this is absolutely backwards, countercultural to us today and to the disciples
then.
Jesus speaks to the disciples and to the crowd about such countercultural notions. The
life to be given is not found in power and strength; the life to be given is through
weakness and vulnerability, Jesus’ weakness and vulnerability. The life to be given is
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through the cross of sacrificial love. Jesus began to teach them that he must undergo
great suffering, be rejected and be killed, and after three days rise again. Jesus did not
come to give life through power; he came to give life through his death on the cross. To
such countercultural notions, Peter rebukes him because this is not the Messiah for
whom they were looking.
The disciples were children of the world looking to power and self-gain themselves just
like us. They may not have been daily bombarded with the 5000 advertising messages
as we are, but they still imagined the secret to the good life was through power and
strength. They were looking for a Messiah of heroic strength that would take down the
Roman oppression. They were looking for prestige, power and dominion. They were
looking for a king like King David. They were not looking for a suffering and dying
Messiah. With such crazy talk from Jesus, the disciples’ listening was cutting off. That
was, until Peter got a whack on the back so to speak when Jesus said, “Get behind me
Satan!”
About nine years ago when this very same gospel lesson came on a Sunday, I gave
such a whack on the back to get someone to listen to me. Nine years ago when I was
serving as an associate pastor in my very first call as a pastor, I was presiding that day
and not preaching the sermon. My senior pastor was preaching and standing in the
pulpit right in front of my chair. I could not see the front of him as he preached, but I
could see the backside of him with his pastor’s robe. For on that pastor’s robe on his
back was a spider that was crawling. Very slowly throughout most of the sermon, this
spider crawled its way up my colleague’s back. I hesitated and fretted not listening at all
to the sermon. I didn’t want to distract my colleague during his preaching and interrupt
him. I honestly did not know what to do UNTIL the spider began to crawl up towards my
colleague’s neck and then in a split-second decision, I stood up and whacked my
colleague on his back killing the spider. Stunned and probably shocked, my colleague
used the very scripture of that day and said, “Well, get behind me Satan!”
“Get behind me Satan!” Jesus says to Peter after Peter tries to whack him on the back
rebuking him…trying to distract him. In other words Jesus says, “For all the things that
you can do to tempt me to not follow God’s path for me, get behind me Satan. For all
the ways you can distract me from journeying where I must go, get behind me Satan.
Get behind me Satan because even the whacks that you give me on my back cannot
detour me from bringing life to all.” Jesus will not let his journey be detoured; he will
suffer, be rejected, and be killed…he will be the vulnerable, weak Messiah who will lose
his life so that all may receive LIFE now and forever.
Life is for you. This is the life God longs to give you in Jesus Christ. It is given to you in
the waters of your baptism and daily renewed each day you awake in the grace of God
that is sufficient not with your power and strength, but with your weakness. Paul speaks
of weakness in what the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is
made perfect in weakness.” Paul continues to say that he will boast in his weakness so
that Christ may dwell in him. Paul is proof that when you are willing to lose your life—the
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life you thought you could gain through power, achievements, status, money—when you
are willing to give it all away for the sake of the gospel and Jesus, it is THEN that you
live the good life God longs for you to have. When you give your life away for the sake
of Jesus, it is then that belonging never felt better, you have a love that grows, you
regret nothing, you think different, and you’ve never been more alive. It does NOT take
advertisement slogans to tell you that and you don’t have to buy something to get this!
Christ already paid the price for this life for you and tells you over and over again so that
you may hear and receive this good news!
So if you’re looking for proof that this body of believers has heard this good news—just
pay attention this Lent! You only need walk out of this sanctuary today to see what it
looks like when others are willing to lose their life for the sake of another…for the sake
of one and his family awaiting a liver transplant. You only need to see others tying
fleece blankets while saying a prayer during worship on Wednesdays so that refugees
will have some warmth when they come with only their shirts on their back to Lincoln.
You only need to see countless acts of generosity from many of these brothers and
sisters as today…one day at a time they have said, “Today Jesus, I lose my life for your
sake!”
And all of God’s people say, “Amen!”
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