Christ Church, Falkirk

Readings

Psalm 22: 22-30

Romans 4: 13-25

Mark 8: 31-38 *text given at the end of the sermon

Sermon by Rev. Sarah Shaw

You’ll notice that the service has a ‘theme’ today. This is because, as I was thinking about the next few weeks of Lent, hymns words kept coming into my head! For this week, it was the words ‘Self on the cross, and Christ upon the throne’ that emerged. We’ll sing these words shortly, and I encourage us all to take them to heart.

I don’t think, from these words, we’re to assume that in some way we as Christ did, must sacrifice ourselves, i.e. go to our physical deaths, for his sake, or for the sake of others (although in some countries where you can’t be a Christian, this could be a possibility). But ‘Self on the cross and Christ upon the throne’ is a shorthand way of saying that Jesus needs to take proper place in our lives. Perhaps it helps if we think of that first word, ‘self,’ as ‘selfishness’ or ‘ego’. For all of us, there are things in our lives that threaten to distract us from God, threaten to prevent us from following Jesus – these are ‘Self’. Our selfishness – putting our needs first – our pride – making us rely on ourselves rather than God.  These are the things we need to prayerfully nail to the cross.  

In some ways, we could say that an opposite of selfishness is faithfulness; faithfulness to our calling to love God and our neighbour above all things. In our readings today the call to faithfulness is important. In the Psalm, the Psalmist praises God for hearing him when he cried to God.  And, in turn, the Psalmist promises to fulfil his vow to serve God.  

In some ways the words seem a world away from ours, the language flowery and biblical. But let’s think for a moment about our own Baptismal vows – the vows we made, or others made, on our behalf, to God. How faithful are we to this calling? As a reminder, in our Baptism we promise three things: to continue in fellowship and in communion with others; to proclaim the good news in words and deeds; and to work for justice and peace. These vows are not empty words, but enable us to be faithful Christians, where our selfishness and pride make way for higher, truer and nobler living.

And in our reading from Romans we hear Paul’s description of the example of Abraham as someone who was faithful to God. Abraham had faith that God would fulfil his promise – that he would be the father of many nations. We’re told, ‘Abraham did not weaken, he did not waver’ in believing that God would do what he had promised. Abraham’s faith, Paul writes, made him righteous. Again, back to faithfulness.

 It’s not always easy to keep faith when so many troubles afflict our world, ourselves, and those who we care for. Sometimes these feeling can threaten to overwhelm us. Faithfulness to God asks that we remember our need of him (as another hymn has it, ‘Let not fears your course impede, great your strength if great your need.’) May we seek therefore, to keep faith, it takes a conscious effort! And in doing so, may we find renewed hope – hope we can then share with others who have lost hope. Faithfulness to God, at times, means setting aside our own feelings and instead looking to God to meet all our needs - the God who cared so much for us he died for us, and for the whole world!

And finally, our Gospel reading. At the recent Mark Study morning, Prof Paul Foster posed the question, ‘Were the disciples good, bad or stupid?’ His answer was that in fact they were none of these things – certainly not all of the time! In the Gospel reading today they show themselves as having an entirely human and understandable response. Jesus is telling them what he must undergo – suffering and death - and it cannot have made sense. This rabbi - their leader, with his life-giving words and actions – why must he undergo suffering? And how would that be? We might imagine how they felt if, for example, an excellent sport coach half way through a season tells his team that at the end of the season he’ll be resigning in disgrace.  

The disciples were neither good, bad nor stupid, particularly – simply human like us. And we know that, as humans, so often our response is to another person is too quick, and we say simply what makes us feel better. In the Gospel reading Peter rebukes Jesus when he talks of his suffering and death. And Jesus rebukes Peter more strongly, saying that they must all take up their cross in order to follow him. Taking up their cross will mean not imposing their values, wants and desires on Jesus, but instead faithfully following him all the way to the cross and beyond. What they will find, of course, is that despite their abandonment and betrayal at the end, God will remain faithful, and the resurrected Jesus will greet them once more as friends.

When you hear the words ‘Self on the cross and Christ upon the throne’ today, what challenge do you hear? What is God saying you need to do, to be faithful to Christ’s calling to ‘Take up your cross and follow him?’

A prayer by Janet Morley:

Jesus our brother,

you followed the necessary path

and were broken on our behalf.

May we neither cling to our pain

where it is futile,

nor refuse to embrace the cost

when it is required of us:

that in losing our selves for your sake,

we may be brought to new life. Amen

*Gospel Reading

Mark 8: 31-38: Jesus Predicts His Death

Jesus then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³² He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³ But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

³⁴ Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶ What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? ³⁷ Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ³⁸ If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”