The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever wants to save their life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶ What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” ( Mt 16: 21-28)

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I was preparing to do a communion service at a hospital once, and as I waited for the chronically ill patients to be brought in, I found myself standing next to a man immobile, in a wheelchair.

I knew him as a retired United church minister.

Although he wasn’t able to move, I could see from his face that he was bothered about something so I leaned over to hear him whisper, ” Now you won’t leave me out there not knowing what is going on, will you?”

I wondered what he meant at first, then I realized that the noise and bustle of preparing the service, people talking, the organist quietly practicing a hymn – all these sounds had taken him back to when he was a minister.

And the feeling of having to participate. And of being unprepared!

It is everyone’s worst nightmare isn’t it,.to be in front of people, to have to address them, and to be totally unprepared.

In a study that was taken, the top of the list of what people feared the most, was speaking in public. The second item on the list was a fear of dying.

So people would rather die than speak in public.

At that moment, this man, he must have been ninety if a day, and a stroke victim, was ready – albeit nervously – to serve his God, as he had for goodness knows how many years, if only he were prepared.

The phrase `faithful unto death,’ comes to mind, doesn’t it?

Jesus says in today’s Gospel that those who want to become his followers must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him.

I imagine that old man had taken up his cross many, many years ago and never put it down.

You must deny yourself, Jesus also says.

To be a Christian means to deny what “we” want and do what “He” wants.

In my home town there was a woman doctor by the name of Dr. Skelly. She didn’t look like a doctor. She wore laddered nylons, and broken down shoes, and I imagine her car was older than she was.

Some people used to laugh at how she was, behind her back.

It turned out that Dr. Skelly only took out of her salary enough for the bare essentials. She gave the rest to those who had nothing. She didn’t care what people thought about her appearance.

That’s what it means to deny what “you” want, and do what “He” wants.

Then Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

When Matthew wrote this Gospel, the church was in the midst of a terrible persecution. Christians were being killed just for being Christians.

But you could save your life by renouncing Christ.

An eighty year old bishop of the church was told he was to be questioned the next day about his faith, and that if he didn’t deny Jesus, he would die.

His friends begged him to do as he was asked.

He said, ” In all these years I have known Jesus he has never let me down. I can’t let him down, now.”

It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? It’s something that we have never had to face.

But there are pressures in this world to renounce Christ. Admittedly not as extreme as those.

We can’t get children into Sunday School because of hockey, baseball, skating, or whatever. People can’t make church because of having to work on Sundays. A late night on Saturday, means missing church next day. You can’t fill a Bible-study class because people are too busy.

Television, movies on video, computer games, even the internet – I read somewhere the other day that the biggest problem with the internet is that there is just too much material available – there’s not enough time in the day, the article said.

A million things compete for our time, and call us away from Christ.

We just don’t see it. Because it’s just natural to do what everyone else is doing, isn’t it?

Jesus faced temptation to do what the world expected.

You will remember that in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted by Satan to take the way of power. ” Give them bread ,” he said, “Give them, sensation. Give them wonders and they will follow you.”

Jump from the height of the temple. You will live, and imagine how people will turn to you after something like that.

“Compromise with the world, reduce your standards, and they will follow you.”

Jesus didn’t give in to temptation, of course.

But when Satan ended his efforts to tempt Jesus, there in the wilderness, Luke said,” He departed from Him until an opportune time.”

Satan would be back.

And there were opportune times. I imagine.

Like in the Garden of Gethsemane.

When Jesus was looking toward the cross.

Let’s face it, no-one wants a cross. No-one wants to die.

And now not too long before that Gethsemane moment Satan uses Peter to try to talk him out of doing what his Father asked him to do.

I don’t think Jesus said, “Get thee behind me Satan,” in anger, but rather in sorrow.

But Jesus could call Peter, `Satan’ because anything that deflects us from the way of God….. is Satan – the Adversary,

Anything that makes us turn back from the hard way that God has set before us…… is Satan.

Any power which seeks to put human desires in front of wanting to serve God….. is Satan.

Satan used Peter’s love of Jesus to try and turn him away.

Peter wanted to protect Jesus, as we all want to protect the ones we love.

I am sure that most of us with grown up children have tried in our love, to protect them from the world, even if they are old enough to go out and look after themselves.

Real love encourages us to fulfill our destiny. Not to protect us unnecessarily.

What really wounded Jesus’ heart and what made him speak as he did was that the tempter spoke to him through the fond… but mistaken love… of Peter’s impulsive heart.

Jesus was going to give up his life and Peter wanted to stop him.

Brooks Philips was a man, famous for many achievements who was even better-known for the help he extended to many people – he was always there, and had always been there – a phone call away – and he died an early death.

Someone said that he could have lived much longer except that he gave so much of himself to others. They asked why didn’t somebody stop him so he could have a longer life?

The response was, “Ah but he would not have been Brooks Philips then, would he?”

You might say that Brooks Philips had taken up a cross, and never put it down.

Jesus talked about taking up a cross didn’t he? He didn’t mean it literally, of course, it means to take up a life of sacrifice.

Joel Osteen, the current popular television evangelist doesn’t preach a life of sacrifice. He preaches a life of good things which come from following Jesus. A prosperity Gospel!

Follow Jesus and you will be prosperous and happy, and so on.

But according to Jesus himself, the Christian life is a life of sacrifice.

Anybody who has been a warden, a treasurer, a Sunday School teacher, a fund-raiser, a group leader, and so on, knows that.

You have often had to sacrifice a quiet hour by the fireside, or time with family to do what had to be done.

It’s a good job there have been, and are, real Christians like that, ready to sacrifice, or many a church would have been gone years ago.

It shouldn’t surprise us, that the Christian way is the way of sacrifice, should it? After all, we are called Christians because we follow Jesus…… we follow our leader.

Do you remember that game we played as children, called Follow the Leader? You had to do everything the leader did. Remember that game? There’s a grown up version, did you know?

I remember once, standing in line in the service club, when I was in the Air Force. I played a silly game of follow your leader.

A young lady, standing behind the counter was talking to a friend and waving her arms as she talked. I copied what she was doing. And my friends laughed, waiting to see what she would do when she saw me mimicking her.

Isn’t that annoying, when someone does that? Mimic you?

But she didn’t get angry ……… she just struck a very sexy pose, and I of course, red-faced, didn’t mimic that in front of my buddies.

The laugh was on me!

There’s no fear of being caught doing something that’s not right when we follow Jesus.

But being a Christian does call for us to follow a leader who sacrificed all. We know that don’t we?

Was it the opportunity to sacrifice that brought you to your church?

And what about those who don’t attend church? What would attract them?

Should we tell them that yours is a nice easy church and you can sit back and don’t have to do much. Just show up on Sundays and drop your envelope onto the plate. That would be the extent of your involvement.

Or should we say: It’s a church where you are expected to attend, and, as far as you can, to make an offering to support your church, but that in addition, you will be asked to help in a ton of other ways: teaching Sunday School, reading, carrying a chalice, providing coffee hour, serving around the altar, right through to helping clean up the grounds.

Oh, and not to mention providing a casserole when a family needs help.

Or to drive someone to the doctor’s office.

Because church is family, and everyone in a family helps, don’t they? It’s not much of a family where no-one helps.

I wonder which type of church would bring in more people? The one which doesn’t ask for that sort of commitment or the one that does?

I know what that old minister, in the wheelchair would say, if he could. Even at ninety years old.

I think he’d tell us that that the church which has expectations of its members is one that breeds commitment. And that commitment breeds growth.

So, pray with me, that we can follow Jesus in a life-long… and life-giving…. commitment. Sacrificing, and following, and resisting the temptation to take the easy way.

“For the Son of Man is coming in great glory and he will repay everyone for what has been done.”

Amen.