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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +

Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The textbook we at Concordia University Texas used for the New Testament History and Readings class suggested the four Gospel accounts, if not the whole New Testament, really centered on the answers to three key questions: “Who is Jesus?”, “What has He done?”, and “What effect should the answers to those first two questions have on those who read the New Testament or hear its message?” Those three questions—“Who is Jesus?”, “What has He done?”, and “What effect should the answers to those first two questions have on those who read the New Testament or hear its message?”—not only are at the center of the whole New Testament, but to some extent the three questions are also at the center of the appointed Gospel Reading on this Second Sunday in Lent. The first question, “Who is Jesus?”, is somewhat addressed as Jesus asks His disciples who people and who the disciples say that Jesus is. The second question, “What has He done?” is somewhat addressed as Jesus begins to teach them that He must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. And the third question, “What effect should the answers to those first two questions have on those who read the New Testament or hear its message?”, is somewhat addressed as Jesus teaches about denying oneself, taking up one’s cross, and following Jesus. We could say that the first question, “Who is Jesus?”, entails the second question, “What has He done?”, and brings about the answer to the third question, “What effect should the answers to those first two questions have on those who read the New Testament or hear its message?” And, as we consider the Gospel Reading and its application to us this day, we do so under the theme rephrasing that first question as “Who do you say Jesus is?”

Jesus’s asking His disciples who people and the disciples say that He is and Jesus’s beginning to teach them that He must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again make our Gospel Reading a turning point in St. Mark’s divinely-inspired account. Up to this point, unclean spirits had identified Jesus as “the Holy One of God”, “the Son of God”, and “Son of the Most High God”. So, the people’s inadequate answers to Who Jesus is—John the Baptizer, Elijah, one of the prophets—contrast sharply with the disciples’ adequate answer—“The Christ”. Then, Jesus’s plain teaching about what kind of “Christ” He is brings on St. Peter’s rebuke of Jesus and Jesus’s rebuke of Peter, and those rebukes result in Jesus’s teaching that not only will the Christ suffer but also those who follow after Him will suffer. From this point on in St. Mark’s account, there is talk of suffering at every turn. The section of St. Mark’s account before us this day is unique for its reporting of Jesus’s pairing Himself with the Gospel as a reason someone might lose his or her life, in the same way that He pairs Himself and His words as something of which someone might be ashamed.

I really do not like picking on St. Peter, and there are so many opportunities to do so! In this case, Peter either rejects the suffering Jesus says the Christ must undergo, or Peter does not understand the point of that suffering, and so Peter takes Jesus aside, and, like we heard last week of Satan in the wilderness, Peter tempts Jesus not to be faithful to His Father. Later, Peter, instead of denying himself as Jesus calls him and us to do, will three times deny his and our Lord. I really do not like picking on St. Peter, especially since we need look no further than ourselves. As Jesus intended, Peter distinguished between false confessions of Jesus as just a man (like John the Baptizer, Elijah, and the other prophets) and instead truly confessed Him as the Christ—“the Son of the living God”, as St. Matthew’s account makes clear. Do we do so well with our confessions of Jesus? Even if we in our hearts know and believe Jesus to be human and divine, do we always faithfully confess that truth outwardly to those around us? The Rev. Dr. Luther, in an Epiphany “sermon” of the early 1520s, alluding to Romans 10, wrote:

Do we let “political correctness” keep us from rebuking Jews, Muslims, and the like who think Jesus was only a man? St. Peter had trouble with the Messiah suffering, but are we any better? Are we looking for some sort of glorious Messiah here and now? As at least some of the disciples wanted, do we want some sort of political Messiah? Yes, at the risk of suffering as Jesus was going to suffer, Peter later failed to deny himself and instead denied Jesus, but do we not also, at the risk of some sort of lesser suffering, fail to deny ourselves and instead deny Jesus? Surrounded by other people who are members of church bodies that officially deny some aspect of Who Jesus is (true God Who accomplishes everything for our salvation), or surrounded by other people who are members of church bodies that officially deny some aspect of what Jesus does (save babies in Holy Baptism and give His true body and blood in the Lord’s Supper), do we confess the truth to them? For us so to confess would risk much less than our lives, but are we nevertheless ashamed of Jesus and His words of the Gospel?

St. Peter eventually repented of his denying Jesus, and God calls us to do likewise. Our failures to confess Jesus, our misunderstanding His Messiahship, our denials and being ashamed of Him and His words of the Gospel all make us subject to God’s judgment. As Jesus rebuked Peter, so Jesus rebukes us. By nature, we do not set our minds on the things of God but on the things of men. By nature, we are a part of the same adulterous and sinful generation as everyone else. What can set us apart is turning in sorrow from our sin and believing that God forgives our sins for Jesus’s sake. For, Jesus gave His life in exchange for ours.

Our judicial system essentially says human life is priceless; slavery was abolished in this country with the 13th Amendment to the U-S Constitution in 18-65. Yet, for decades people have been putting a price on human life, as they consider such things as risk management and healthcare costs. Different agencies of our federal government, for example, require companies to spend as much as 10-million dollars to save a single human life here in time. Yet, such figures mean nothing in terms of our souls and eternal life. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus asks two rhetorical questions intended to make clear both that there is nothing to gain by losing one’s soul and that nothing that can compensate for such a loss. The Bible says only Jesus’s blood can redeem us.

As St. Peter confessed, Jesus is the “Christ”, the Greek word for which means “anointed one”, just like the Hebrew word that gives us the English word “Messiah”. An anointed Prophet and Priest, Jesus is also the greatest of the anointed kings whom God in today’s Old Testament Reading promised Abraham and Sarah would descend from them. Jesus the Christ’s suffering many things; His being rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes; His being killed; and His rising again after three days were all necessary to fulfill Holy Scripture, but, more than that, they were all necessary to save us. As so many good Lenten hymns remind us, our sin sent Jesus to the cross. There He redeemed us, bought us back, “not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death”. When we believe He died for us, God forgives our sin—our sin of failing to confess Jesus, or our sin of misunderstanding His Messiahship, or our sin of denying or being ashamed of Him and His words of the Gospel, or whatever our sin might be. By grace, through faith in Jesus the Christ, God forgives it all.

God’s forgiveness for the sake of our Suffering Savior enables us to deny ourselves, to take up our crosses, and to follow Him. We move away from self-centeredness, abandoning ourselves and no longer seeking to establish our own lives or selves but allowing ourselves to be established by Christ as His disciples. As Christ suffered, so we suffer, and the suffering that we experience as Christians living our faith in this world we call our “cross”. Taking up our cross means we give up our own wisdom in spiritual matters; we give up our peace and harmony in this world; honor from people in this world; friendship of unbelieving coworkers, friends, and family; our possessions; and even, if necessary on account of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, our own physical lives (though, by not denying Him and so maintaining our faith relationship with Him, we thereby save our souls in the world to come). Our sinful flesh thinks bearing such a cross is a heavy burden, when in fact God gives us the strength to bear such a cross by assuring us that our sins are forgiven.

And, we find that assurance that our sins are forgiven in His Word and Sacraments: the Word with water in Holy Baptism, Word from the mouth of the pastor in Holy Absolution, and Word with bread and wine that gives us Jesus the Christ’s body and blood in Holy Communion. Through His Word and Sacraments Jesus continues to reveal Himself to us who too often fail to understand both Who He is—a divine and human Messiah—and what He does—died and rose to save us all, giving us that salvation through Word and Sacrament. Even as we continue to sin—failing to confess Jesus, misunderstanding His Messiahship, denying or being ashamed of Him and His words of the Gospel, even at times rejecting the suffering that comes from following Christ, or in whatever other ways we continue to sin—as we repent, we continue to receive forgiveness in these ways. Forgiven and being transformed by God, we come to see that our cross reveals God’s love and marks us as His children. The progression from our suffering that St. Paul described in today’s Epistle Reading becomes our experience:

Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +