“No Instant Cross”
Mark 8: 31-38
In the Armenian message, Russian
comedian Yaakov Smirnoff’s observation is interesting. Unfortunately, many are “INSTANT CHRISTIANS.”
Christ is challenging our
faith again. No discipleship with “instant” character and lifestyle.
Jesus is talking about denial
of self, carrying the cross, losing life. Terms that are not familiar to many
who want to follow Jesus.
I was reading about the development of our hands when were embryos:
“Look at your hand. It has
five fingers because the cells that used to live between them died way back
when you were an embryo. Embryos as small as eight to 16 cells in size depend
on cell death – if it did not occur, our human development would go off course.
Cell death
is what keeps us from being overrun with cancer. Natural surveillance systems –
(such as the one involving the p53 protein, nicknamed “the guardian of genome”)- detect almost
all cancerous mutations and direct the affected cells to commit suicide.
These cancer cells die so that we might live.
In case of any infection:
(In addition, programmed cell
death causes a constant turnover of cell in the gut lining, and it generates
our skin’s protective outer layer of death cells.)
When our immune system has
finished wiping out an infection, the now-unnecessary white blood cells commit suicide in a very orderly fashion. This allows the
inflammation caused by the infection to go down.
The human body stays alive, in large part, because of
death. Certain cells die because of the benefit this brings to the greater
whole.”1
This wonderful biological
reality illustrates what Jesus is saying.
Someone had to pay the price. Jesus died so that we can have life. And if we want to follow him, we need to die, lose,
go down, carry the cross….
I always do ask myself:
How do I deny myself?
How can I carry a cross?
These are important,
fundamental, basic questions that we need to ask ourselves.
Let me quote from Romans 6, verses 2 -4.
“By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know
that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into HIS DEATH?
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life.”
When we accept Jesus Christ
as personal savior, we die to sin.
Our sinful nature will die. When Christ is asking us to deny the self, he is
asking us to say ‘goodbye’ to the old
nature, to the sinful nature and ‘hello’ to the new
nature. Take off the old clothes,
throw them away, bury them, and kill them, like the cells that needed to die,
so that we can have new ones.
The best illustration is Jesus himself.
I like to give you another
example from ordinary people.
Thomas Cannon,
from
Cannon was married and he
supported his wife and two sons. He did not make more than $20,000 a year. When he retired in 1983, he and his wife lived
a very simple life of retirement on the edge of poverty.
Thomas Cannon did not want any foundation to be set up to continue
his work after his death, because that kind of foundation would require a
lot of paperwork and bureaucracy. His philosophy was very simple, “HELP
SOMEONE.”2
This story hit me. So simple. I wonder what economists will say about this. Yet
this man learned to say NO to his old lifestyle and YES to a new one. He was
ready to live a modest life in order to share with others.
I received a letter from my former church, the Emmanuel
Church of
They are going to write the history
of the church. They want me to write what happened in the church during the years
of my service.
I was happy about it. It was
good idea to put an effort into writing the history of the church and pass it
on to the coming generations. I started to make the outline in my head about the
things I have done there. Credits and achievements that I can be proud of; then this story hit
me.
I don’t want people to remember my achievements. I want to write about lives that were transformed. I
started thinking,
Did Christ make any difference
in their lives?
Did I serve our Lord Jesus
Christ faithfully?
Did I preach the Good News to
them?
Who takes the glory? Do you
see that lives were transformed?
There is a saying: “It is
amazing what can Christians can do if they do not care who gets the credit.”
Therefore, we all need to
examine ourselves everyday. Do I deny myself? Do I bring my sinful nature to
Jesus Christ and say, “DESTROY my habits and my ego so I can live with you.”
Looking at our church budget,
I see that we have a wonderful start of securing our yearly budget. I studied
the budget I found that %60 of the funds go to the staff, including my salary.
I pray and dream that one day our budget will be where the 10 or 20 percent
will go to staff and 80 and 90 percent to programs, mission, Christian
education, outreach, building care and development… etc.
The world is so dark; it needs our touch, which is the
touch of God through us.
When we deny ourselves, we
join Jesus; with him we walk the path of suffering. We are joining Jesus to
make this world a better place to live.
Please notice that Jesus is not giving us HIS CROSS.
We can not and should not
take His cross. His death on the cross was to redeem and clean us from our
sinful nature. His cross was unique and
no one can bear it.
Yet, he challenged us saying “take your cross”, our own cross. He
wants us to identify with the events of the crucifixion. He wants from us to be in the story, to be part of the
story.
The spiritual says: “Were you
there when they crucified my Lord?”
Can you be there, in the
story, not as a spectator, no, but a carrier of a new cross, the cross of human
suffering, hunger, pain, destruction, genocide, egocentrism.
There is a choice to be made.
Again we speak about choices:
Either you
see all these and you do nothing.
Or “You can take it up and be transformed, living for something
greater than YOURSELF.” 3
Let me quote Isaac Watts’
wonderful hymn written in 1707:
“When
I survey the wondrous cross
On
which the Prince of glory died,
My
richest gain I count but loss,
And
pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were
a tribute far too small;
Love
so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my ALL.”
Demands my
soul, my life my all. Isaac Watts
did understand this passage very well. You can not bargain with the Lord about
this.
Remember, there is no INSTANT
CROSS.
Remember the Armenian Khatchkars.
The flowers designs were
there to remind us that the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ SHOULD bloom
like a flower with a wonderful smell to spread ALL over this dark world of pain
and suffering.
COME ON Let
AMEN.
1 The Upside of Death.
Homileticsonline.com
2 Holley,
Joe. “Thomas Cannon dies; postal clerk
lived a pauper to help
others.” The
3 Blair,
Brett. “Why Must We Carry A
Cross?” eSermons.com