Peter and the Disciples

Mark 8:31-38

Two men from New York City who had never been out of the city decided that they had had enough of city living, and they bought a ranch down in Texas where they planned to live off the land.  They decided that the first thing they needed was a mule, so they went to a neighboring rancher and asked him if he had a mule he’d be willing to sell.  He told them that he didn’t have one.

They were disappointed, but the two city men stayed and visited with the rancher for a few minutes.  One of them noticed a stack of honey dew melons over against the barn, and he asked the rancher, “What are those?”  Well, the rancher could tell that these two city slickers were pretty gullible, so he told them, “Oh, those are mule eggs.  If you take one of those eggs and wait for it to hatch, you’ll have your mule.”

The city men were thrilled, and they bought one of the melons, put it in the back of the truck and started home.  All of a sudden they hit a big bump in the road, and the melon bounced right out of the truck, hit the road, and split wide open.  The driver realized what had happened and began to turn around to go back and retrieve their mule egg.  Meanwhile, a big Texas jackrabbit came hopping along and saw that melon splattered all over the road and decided to check it out.  Along came those two city slickers.  They saw the split melon and the long-eared critter in the middle of that mess, and one of them shouted, “Our mule egg hatched!  Come on, let’s get our mule!”

When the jackrabbit saw the men running toward him, he took off with them right behind him in hot pursuit.  They tried their best to catch him, but finally gave up the chase and fell on the ground gasping for breath.  One of them finally said, “Well, I guess we lost our mule.”  The other one answered, “Yeah, but you know, I’m not sure I wanted to plow that fast anyway.”

There comes a time in our lives when we have to decide how committed we are to some demand or task or challenge.  When our young people try out for school athletic teams, their commitment will be tested, and some will drop out along the way as the requirements get tougher and the competition gets stiffer.  Military schools are another testing ground, and many first-year students find that they are not as committed to the program as they thought.

The passage in Mark’s gospel that I read earlier is a passage about a time for making a decision about commitment.  Jesus and the disciples had traveled extensively in Galilee, and now had come to the northernmost tip of Israel.  Along the way, the disciples had seen many massive demonstrations of Jesus’ power: the feeding of a huge crowd with only one boy’s small lunch; Jesus walking across the lake to join them in a boat; the casting out of demons and healing of all sorts of diseases and illnesses.  The number of people surrounding Jesus grew daily.  Those twelve men must have been sure they were on the road to success.

Jesus had come to a critical point in his ministry.  True, he had enjoyed enormous popularity with the common people, and could hardly even find time to be alone to eat or to pray.  But he had also made some dangerous enemies among the political and religious leaders, who were already plotting to find some way to silence him.  When he went to Jerusalem this time, he would not leave.  His time was short.  His days were numbered.  And he didn’t even know if his disciples understood who he really was or what he was really about.

So Jesus began to teach them the truth about the role he would play as the Messiah.  He did not leave any room for misunderstanding.  His language was clear and precise:  He MUST suffer many things.  He MUST be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law.  He MUST be killed and raised again on the third day.  All of this would take place, and it would be the will of God.

I can well imagine that these words must have knocked the wind out of Peter and the other disciples.  What Jesus said was absolutely incredible to them.  It was so impossible for Peter to accept what Jesus said that he took Jesus aside and tried to set him straight.  Peter wanted a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and become king.  He expected a Messiah who was a winner, a force to be reckoned with, a warrior destined for glory and honor.  With so much power, the Messiah need not suffer at all.  A crucified Messiah just did not make sense to Peter.

We are not so very different from Peter.  We, too, would prefer a religion that guaranteed successful living, that protected us from harm and conflict.  We, too, might prefer a Jesus who better suits our own ambitions and goals.  And there are plenty of modern religious voices who are willing to provide us with a more acceptable Jesus.  Some describe him as a revolutionary who gathered a bunch of desperadoes to bring about the liberation of the oppressed.  Some say he was a nonviolent teacher who spoke simple words of wisdom.  Others portray Jesus as a charismatic healer who was trying to reform Judaism.  Just like the early followers of Jesus, we would much rather walk the path toward health, wealth, and happiness than the way toward suffering, death, and rejection.

To Peter and to the disciples, to the crowd who had gathered around them, and to us, Jesus spoke about what it really meant to be a true follower of his.  He was honest about what they were getting themselves into, and yet, he did not call them to do anything he was not willing to do himself.

The first requirement for followers of Jesus is that we must deny ourselves.  To deny yourself is to say no to yourself and yes to Jesus.  It means saying no to your own ease or comfort, saying no to your own ambitions and desires.  It means saying yes to the commands of Jesus, allowing Jesus to live in you.  It means that you agree to follow his will and not your own.  The German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote, “To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self …”

David Garland, a former professor of mine, wrote,

Discipleship is not part-time volunteer work that one does as an extracurricular activity.  God refuses to accept a minor role in [our lives]; he requires a controlling place.  One cannot live as a disciple the way [we] watch television – sitting in a lounge chair with remote control in hand, ready to switch channels whenever anything unpleasant, tedious, or demanding appears on the screen.

What does it mean, in practical terms, to deny yourself?  It means something different to each person.  Garland wrote,

For the proud, it means renouncing the desire for status and honor.  For the greedy, it means renouncing an appetite for wealth.  The complacent will have to renounce the love of ease.  The fainthearted will have to abandon the craving for security … [Individuals] know best what hinders them from giving their lives over to God.

The second requirement for those who would follow Jesus is this:  you must take up your cross.  We’ve had two thousand years to get used to the image of the cross; we cannot appreciate how shocking it must have been to those people gathered around Jesus that day.  They had seen what the cross was all about firsthand.  It was not at all unusual to witness a crucifixion; in fact, public executions were a prominent part of their lives.  They knew that the cross meant pain and brutality and degradation.  They knew that crucifixion was a torturous death reserved for the worst criminals.  To take up your cross was to carry your cross the place where you would be put to death. 

The cross is the heart of the gospel.  Bearing a cross is a central requirement of discipleship.  It is not an option, but an expectation of anyone who is called by the name “Christian.”  David Garland wrote that

Jesus does not invite them to try the cross on for size to see if they like it.  He does not ask for volunteers to carry one for extra credit.  This particular demand separates the disciples from the admirers.  Disciples must do more than survey the wondrous cross, … and love the old rugged cross … They must become like Jesus in obedience and live that cross.

Two thousand years down the road, we are not that shocked by the cross anymore.  We have instead trivialized it.  To some the cross is little more than a fashion accessory, something to be worn rather than something to be borne.  To others taking up their cross means bearing up under an illness, a family problem, or the aches and pains of life that are laid on us by circumstance, rather than a deliberate style of life that we choose for ourselves.  A sign at the entrance to an African game preserve reads, “Advance and be bitten.”  That is what Christian discipleship is all about.  Those who are considering the way of discipleship have been warned about what kind of journey they are letting themselves in for.

The taking up of the cross means that we are willing to lose our own life for the sake of others.  Christian author Elisabeth Elliott wrote, “The offering up of ourselves … to God is the laying down of our lives for the life of the world.  That is the mystery of sacrifice.”  There have been, through the centuries, those for whom Christian discipleship meant losing their lives literally.  There have been martyrs in every generation, including ours.  Among the disciples, many were put to death for their faith, including Peter and James.  And there have been others through the centuries.

Telemachus was a monk in the late 4th century.  He traveled to Rome, where he was stunned by the spectacle of the gladiator games that were held in the great Coliseum.  Prisoners were made to fight and to kill each other while crowds as large as 80,000 people cheered them on.  Telemachus was appalled as he watched one of these contests, and he jumped from the stands into the arena.  He stood between two of the gladiators to try to keep them from continuing to fight.  They paused for a moment, then shoved him out of the way and kept fighting.  Telemachus got up and stood between the two gladiators again.  The crowd started throwing rocks at Telemachus and they shouted for the gladiators to kill him.  They did kill him.  And gradually the crowd grew silent, as they realized what had just happened.  They were shocked that this holy man had been killed in such a brutal manner.  And that was the last fight between gladiators in Rome.  In his book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon wrote of Telemachus, “His death was more useful to mankind than his life.”

For those who commit themselves to the way of the cross, there may be suffering and hardship, and there is the constant need for surrendering self to the will of God.  But that is not all there is.  Thomas a Kempis, a German mystic and priest who lived from 1380 to 1471, wrote,

Take up your cross … and follow Jesus, and you will inherit everlasting life.  Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends.  There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way and the discipline of the cross … If you willingly carry the cross, it will carry you.  It will take you to where suffering comes to an end, a place other than here.

That is our hope.  That is the promise for all who choose to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus.