March 1

March 1, 2009

The Cross of Christ: An Example to Follow
a sermon on Mark 8.34-38
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

A father and his little girl were visiting a Catholic hospital. She was almost 5 years old, and would be starting kindergarten in the fall. They passed the chapel, and the little girl wanted to go in and take a look. They were church goers, but Protestant, and the girl liked church, and here was a kind of little church in the middle of the hospital, and “Daddy, let’s go in and see.” So they did. What she saw shocked her. There on the wall, where a plain, empty cross would be in her church was a crucifix. There was Jesus, nailed to the cross, wearing a crown of thorns, bleeding, and in obvious anguish. In that moment, the cross became real to her in a way it had not been before. She had heard the words, seen the sanitized pictures in her children’s Bible. This was different.

It reminds me of how I first learned about the cross. I had two picture Bibles, one for little kids and one for older children. The one for older children had a graphic picture of the crucifixion. I ran to my mother and asked her about it, just as this little girl began to ask her father. What’s Jesus doing on the cross? Why is he there? Those are easy answers: Jesus died on the cross for us, because he loves us. Then come the follow up questions: Why did he have to die for us? How does his death save us? When a child asks you that—ready or not—you are about to articulate your understanding of the doctrine of the atonement. No wimping out, by the way. When your child or grandchild or any other little kid asks you a question like that, you have to try to answer it. They asked you. They want to know what you believe. If you really don’t know then (1) it’s OK to go together to find out, and (2) you better take notes for the next five weeks.

The season of Lent has begun, and this year during Lent I am going to preach about the cross. Christians believe Jesus’ death was not just something bad that happened to him—he offended the wrong people, for example, and got careless showing up in Jerusalem. Rather, he chose the cross. He died on purpose. Why? Because he loved us, and his death would bring us forgiveness and eternal life. But how does that work exactly? Why was his death necessary? The church has never settled on one answer to this question. The main reason is that scripture itself offers at least five good answers. When it talks about the cross, the Bible employs different images and word families to explain it. Jesus set an example for us to follow. He gave his life as a ransom for many. He was our substitute, taking the punishment that should have been ours. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And, on the cross Jesus triumphed over sin, death, and evil.

In the March newsletter, I compared the cross to white light, which contains all the colors of the visible spectrum. Shine white light through a prism, and out the other side comes a rainbow. Scripture is a kind of prism for the cross. By giving us all these ways to think about it, scripture enables us to understand the cross and appreciate its beauty. My plan is simple: One sermon for each of these ways to think about the cross. I’ll explain each one, reveal the particular strengths and limitations of each, and hopefully the cross will become real to you in a deeper way than before. You will appreciate more Jesus’ death for you, and you will love him more because of it.

For this series you only have to learn one word. You don’t really have to learn it, but you ought to. That word is atonement. You can define atonement by breaking it apart: at-one-ment. Atonement is about how we human beings and our Creator can be at one. Atonement refers to the way God dealt with our sin and restored us to a right relationship with him. So you can say that during Lent I am preaching about the atonement, or you can say that I am preaching about the cross. I am going to explain big ideas in little words, but I want you to be familiar with this one. It’s a word you will probably only use at church, but still it’s worth knowing.

How does Jesus death save us? Why did he have to die? The answer we look at today is: Jesus, in his death, gave us an example to follow.

As we look at the cross this way, we see what happens when love meets evil. Jesus practiced peace and love. This led him into conflict with the powers that be, who practiced a philosophy of getting rid of people that get in your way. Jesus refused to sink to their level. He refused to become evil like them. So he suffered his fate with words of forgiveness on his lips. We know the world isn’t any different today, and the same choice comes to each of us at various times and in different ways. Will we choose love or evil? We see the cross, and we know it is possible to choose love, even when it costs us everything. On the cross, Jesus gave us an example of love, faith, hope, and humility that we should follow.

In this view, the difference the cross makes in us is subjective, not objective. In other words, the cross does not change, for example, our standing before God. Rather, it changes our hearts and minds. We see this beautiful, courageous act of self-giving love, and we will never be the same. Our values change. Our attitudes change. We want to imitate Jesus. We aspire to live the way he did, even if it means dying the way he did.

From the perspective of this view, our main problem is ignorance. We sin because we don’t know any better. Until Jesus came we never really knew how we were supposed to live. He showed us. His life, therefore, is very important, and his death becomes the supreme example of how he lived all along.

Hopefully you have spotted the fatal weakness in this answer. If the cross is only an example for us to follow, it doesn’t do us much good, because our real problem is not ignorance. We know we are supposed to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as our self. Our imaginations work well enough that we can envision what that would look like in most cases. Our problem is that we know what we ought to do but we want to do something else. We’ve got a nasty selfish streak; and no example, no matter how noble or beautiful, can overcome that.

This answer has been popular with liberal theologians. It has been the answer of choice for those who admire Jesus but can’t believe in a God who acts in our world and lives. If you don’t believe Jesus is God, but you look up to him and don’t want his death to be a tragic waste, what’s left? Well, it can be an example for us to follow. That’s the weakness of this answer, but it is a fatal weakness only if you exclude all the other answers. If you combine this answer with the others and with a robust, orthodox view of Jesus, this is a perfectly good answer.

It is scriptural too. You see this not only in our scripture reading, but in our call to worship, Philippians 2.5-11. Paul certainly believed Jesus is God. He knew we need more than just an example, and he knew the cross gives us more. But he also saw in the cross an example we can follow every day: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” If you live every day with that kind of humility, your life will please God.

And of course the cross gives us an example of more than humility. It reminds us to pray, “Not my will but yours be done.” … It forces us to ask ourselves: Am I giving God my very best? … The cross graphically states: Love costs something. You have to give of yourself.

As we think about the meaning of the cross, we find Jesus himself spoke about it in more than one way. It is obvious from what he said that he intended to do more than just set an example. He said, “The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many.” And in his teaching, he replaced the Temple in Jerusalem with himself, as if he expected to fulfill the function for which the Temple existed—namely, to deal with sin. So Jesus intended to do more than give us an example, but as we heard in our scripture reading, he did mean to set an example. He went to the cross, and he expects us to follow.

Jesus told both his disciples and the crowds, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Why? Because that’s the kingdom way. It’s God’s way. We live in the kind of world that rejects God’s way, as it rejects God. If you choose Jesus, if you set out to follow him, you will invariably meet resistance—unless you are a wishy-washy disciple who hides your light under a bushel lest anyone should see it. If you really believe in Jesus and want to follow him, you will pay the price. You must deny yourself and be ready to take up your cross. That’s the level of commitment he demands. If you want to give less, he’s not interested. With him, it’s all or nothing. After all, he gave his all for you. Would you hold out on him?

I know this sounds frightening. Honestly, I’m not gung ho about giving everything. It’s fine in theory, but when you get down to how you live your life … well, I have trouble with it. It helps me to remember that Jesus didn’t exactly welcome the cross. In the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” By cup he meant his suffering and death. Of course he knew it wasn’t possible, but such was his dread of the cross he prayed that anyway. Then he went on, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He expects us to pray the same thing. He expects us to do the same thing.

Here is how the cross as an example can help you in your daily life: When you are tempted to do the wrong thing … when you are afraid to do the right thing … when you realize you are a pitiful excuse for a disciple because you have made God one little part of your complex life instead of making him the center of it all … you can look at the cross. I urge you to do this literally, not merely in your imagination. You can read the gospel accounts. There are hundreds of paintings of the crucifixion. Maybe you know where you can find an emotionally powerful crucifix. The movie The Passion of the Christ provides a more contemporary alternative. I recommend finding one particular artistic expression of the cross and focusing on it. Pay attention to it. It is only an artistic representation, but it represents the real suffering and death of Jesus. As you study it, think of his love: his love for his Father that enabled him to pray, “Not my will but yours be done.” His love for you. Consider all that he gave for your sake. Go back to the Philippians 5 passage. He gave up his glory, his home, his life. He exchanged them for humiliation, service, and death. All for you. Then weigh carefully in your mind your sacrifice against his: If he gave so much for you, can you not give so little for him? And what if your sacrifice is not so small? Compared to his it will always be small, but from your perspective it might be enormous. What if you have to give everything? Can you do it? He did. “But I’m not him,” you protest. That’s true, you are not. But what he did for you on the cross has set you free from sin and from the fear of death. Maybe you could not give all otherwise, but now you can.

Jesus death on the cross is an example for us to follow. Amen.

rev_mauldin@yahoo.com back to sermons