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Every summer I seem to get a
little depressed, it seems as if each Sunday the services are just a
little bit smaller. And like most people I wonder what did, or what I
said even when I know where people are going on vacation, who is
visiting who and how long they will stay. The cycle of every year like
the church year is a miniature of the dying and rising to new life that
the true life, the Resurrection life we share in Christ is all about.
One of the catch phrases we use in our church is on our Logo,
"Resurrection, where new life begins."
As a culture we love Resurrection it
truly is all about life but we don't really like what leads up to it.
This new life it comes at a cost to us and to God. Resurrection means
new life, but the prelude to resurrection is always death. Human
difficulty with the pairing of death and resurrection is dealt with in
the Bible. When Jesus Talks about his upcoming death and resurrection
Peter immediately begins to argue with him saying it doesn't have to be
that way! This begins a segment of the Gospel of Matthew that clearly
outlines what Martin Luther called the Theology of the Cross. This
theology tells us that it is in the cross that we truly gain an insight
into the heart of God. The opposite to this in Luther's thought is the
Theology of Glory which focuses more on the gift than the giver and
lifts up our human abilities more than the power of God. It is
resurrection without the cross, forgiveness without repentance, a gift
with no regard for the giver.
After Peter argues with him, Jesus
tells his disciples;
"If any want to become my followers, let them deny
themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to
save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake
will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world
but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
Matthew 16:24-26
This is the center of the Lutheran
understanding of the Christian faith. The freedom and life God wishes
for us is bought at a terrible cost. What God hopes in paying this cost
is that we will join with him in this ministry of reconciliation and
"pay it forward." We become what Paul refers to as the Body of Christ,
the heart, hands and feet of Jesus able to once again reach out and
lovingly touch and speak to those people who have not heard of the great
gift of God accomplished on the cross of which Peter was so afraid.
Dietrich Bonheoffer The German
theologian who died in a Nazi concentration camp warned us of the error
of minimizing the cost of discipleship. He
referred to it as "cheap grace." It begins in our own heart when we
begin to believe that God forgives us without any change on our part.
The normal word coupled with forgiveness is repentance, but that is a
concept our culture connects to just saying we are sorry. Repentance
means turning around and going a different direction. Grief and sorrow
are indeed a part of this process but not the main intent of repentance.
Changed behavior is the real point of repentance.
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This is Jesus' meaning when he
tells his followers we should deny
ourselves and take up our cross and follow him.
Living as a
Christian means constant change. The new life promised in Christ is a
new life we gain through the cross, Jesus' cross and then if we truly
wish to become his followers, our own cross. This is the connection that
must take place if we are to truly be transformed as God promised and
put on the mind of Christ. This is the way of the cross, the true
resurrection life.
The way of the cross is not just a
personal pathway, it is the way a church must follow as well. Jesus told
his disciples;
Whoever wishes to be great among
you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must
be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to
serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
Matthew 20:26-28
The loss of self that is at the
core of true servant-hood is the true Christian life, the Resurrection
Life. As Jesus said;
those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
As a church the question we need to ask is how can
we serve? How can we serve God by reaching out to those who have not yet
come into a relationship with God in Jesus Christ, how can we serve our
neighbors, those who have critical needs both spiritually and
physically. As we begin again in September, we need to develop a new
awareness of God and God's will, for us as individuals and as a church.
We need to continually seek out the true cross God has laid upon us all
and with God's help to make the changes in our lives and our church that
will better enable us to live out the life of humble service and love to
which we have been called. Remember the words Jesus prayed just as he
was about to go to the cross, not my will but your will be done.
Pastor Jim Bliss
September 2011
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