I remember when I was 27 years old, wow, sitting at my desk in my bedroom in Chicago, Illinois,
in an apartment I shared with two other guys, and I remember having one of those moments
of realization, a moment of clarity so stark, I can still remember the angle of my chair
I was sitting in and the wall that I was looking at.
The realization in that moment was that life suddenly felt very hard, and things were not
going the way that I had expected them to, and I felt powerless to do anything about it.
And although this sort of realization had been building for some time, the moment came kind
of like a shock because it had come on the back of several years leading up to this point
in which I had experienced my life as one kind of blessing and gift after another.
So after graduating from college, I went to seminary in Chicago, and that began a season of life
that was incredibly rich.
Prayers that I had been praying for for years were suddenly answered.
I joined this incredible church and became part of this rich community.
My spiritual life was absolutely transformed, and there was this sense of God's presence
like nothing I had ever experienced before.
This continued after seminary.
After seminary, I had moved to England to become an assistant pastor for the next two years,
and the sense of community and God's blessing and nearness only seemed to expand during that time.
It was kind of like this four-year honeymoon of gifts and blessing and ministry and friendship.
After seminary, two years in England, I moved back to Chicago to take on a new role,
and at this point, I assumed that what I had been experiencing was the new normal.
But just as I moved back, many of the friends who had been so central to my life started moving away.
I had begun dating a girl after moving back, but while many of my friends' relationships
were beginning to lead towards marriage, mine was not.
The church, which had been so central to my own transformation, was now filled with all of these new faces,
and it just seemed to lack the community and energy that I had experienced before.
And in my own walk with God, God seemed distant, and my attempts at prayer felt dry and lifeless.
And it was this sudden realization, sitting in my chair that day in Chicago,
that the things I believed to be true about my spiritual journey,
that what I had experienced in one season was just going to continue into the next,
that this was not, in fact, the case.
And what especially hit me was not simply that things were not going the way I wanted them to,
but that I felt powerless to do anything about it.
There was no snapping of my fingers to bring my friends back,
or for my dating life to flourish,
or for my church community to meet my needs in the way that it once had,
or for God to provide on demand the experiential closeness that I had felt before.
In our gospel reading this morning from Matthew chapter 16,
I think that we observe perhaps a similar kind of moment of realization
among Jesus' disciples.
Up until this point, the passage that we just heard,
in the first 15 and a half chapters,
Matthew's gospel has been filled with story after story
of Jesus powerfully intervening in people's lives.
He's healing lepers.
He's casting out demons.
He's making the lame walk.
He is telling stories that upend people's expectations.
And he's preaching sermons,
like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7,
in which he takes things that people thought they knew,
like the laws of Moses,
and he then interprets them in radical and revolutionary ways.
People's lives are being transformed.
In chapter after chapter,
people are having these staggering experiences of liberation
and freedom and blessing.
But then, in Matthew 16, beginning in verse 21,
something changes.
Moments earlier, Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the Messiah.
And it's a kind of high point and climax up until that point.
What had been wondered about and whispered about has now been confessed.
It's in the open.
But no sooner has Peter said this,
Jesus, you're the Messiah.
No sooner does he say this,
and Jesus pivots.
Matthew says this,
from that time on,
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes
and be killed,
and on the third day be raised.
And Peter reacts to this new information
in the way that most of us react
when we sense that change is coming.
Peter tries to argue with Jesus about it.
And in verse 22,
it says that Peter took Jesus aside
and began to rebuke him and say,
this is not going to happen to you.
Remember, Peter is a card-carrying freedom fighter.
He's a zealot.
And he assumes that at some point,
Jesus is going to lead all of them
in a violent uprising against Rome.
And so Peter has some deeply embedded assumptions
about what life with Jesus is going to look like.
But Jesus tells Peter,
not only are you wrong about what's going to happen to me,
because I am, in fact, going up to Jerusalem
not to kill but to be killed,
but if you are going to continue following me,
you also are going to need to be prepared
for this to be your reality too.
Jesus says to everyone standing there,
if anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life
will lose it.
But whoever loses his life
for my sake
will find it.
And here, I think,
we just have to pause
for a moment
because we find ourselves
confronted by one of the
deepest mysteries and paradoxes
at the heart of the gospel
and I would say even at the heart
of the universe.
We really do not start to live
until we start to lay down our lives.
We find our life
by losing it.
This is hard to grasp
and not only because it goes against
our deep instincts for self-preservation
and self-advancement.
It's also difficult to grasp
because just as it was
with Peter and the disciples,
in the earliest stages
of our journey with Jesus,
at the earliest stages,
we are usually not able to hear
this more difficult teaching.
Notice that in the gospels,
Jesus calls people to follow him
and then they observe
or experience for themselves
one moment after another
of freedom and blessing
and deliverance.
The blind receive their sight,
the lame walk,
the deaf hear,
outsiders become insiders,
the last become first.
People begin to taste
and experience the reality
of God's kingdom
breaking into their lives
and into the world.
And that's how their journey
with Jesus begins.
And just as it was
for the disciples
in the crowds
in Jesus' day,
it is easy to assume
that the way that
God works
in the earliest stages
of our life with him
is the way that he's going
to work
in the later stages
of our life with him.
And therefore,
along with Peter,
we are sometimes surprised
and sometimes put off
when we are confronted
by a deeper work
that God wants to do in us,
which requires embarking
on a more difficult stage
of the journey.
we heard the Old Testament
reading this morning
from Exodus 14
in which
the people of Israel
miraculously escape Egypt.
The Exodus is an important story
to keep in mind
when we're reading the Gospels
because in many ways
the Gospels narrate
the way in which
Jesus' life and ministry
is inaugurating
a new Exodus story.
Think about it.
After Jesus is born,
he's at risk
of being killed by Herod
and so to escape Herod,
Mary and Joseph
flee to where?
Egypt.
It's only later
after it is safe
that Joseph and Mary
leave Egypt
with Jesus
to return
to Galilee.
And the fact
that this happens
is not just some sort
of incidental detail
the Gospel writers
decide to include.
Rather,
it is to show
that Jesus himself
will leave Egypt
and from there
will enter
into the promised land
of Israel
just like Moses
and the Israelites did.
Jesus embodies Israel
and his life
is a reenactment
of Israel's journey
from Egypt
to the promised land.
And just as Moses
led Israel
out of bondage
and slavery
to Pharaoh,
so Jesus will lead
people out of bondage
to sickness
or demonic oppression
or ultimately
out of bondage
to sin.
But as we remember
from our psalm
this morning,
Psalm 78,
Israel's exodus
was not completed
simply by crossing
the Red Sea.
They didn't go straight
into the promised land.
There was a deeper freedom
that could only happen
by spending 40 years
in the desert.
one writer
put it,
it may have taken
40 days
to get Israel
out of Egypt,
but it took
40 years
to get Egypt
out of Israel.
But of course,
Israel didn't understand this.
They were shocked
by this prospect
of wandering
in the desert,
having observed
the powerful way
that God had worked
on their behalf
at the start
of their journey,
the 10 plagues
visiting the Egyptians
and then miraculously
walking on dry ground
across the Red Sea.
They thought this
was the new normal.
They didn't understand
that leaving Egypt
was just the beginning.
in today's gospel reading,
it's clear that Peter
and the disciples
did not realize
that they were just
beginning their journey
with Jesus.
They have observed
the works of deliverance
by Jesus thus far,
and they assumed
this is the new normal.
And so when Jesus
begins talking
about suffering
and carrying a cross,
they are perhaps
understandably confused.
They don't understand
that deeper journey
that Jesus wants
to take his disciples on.
Many of us here
will be able
to look back
on our lives
and be able
to identify
an exodus moment
or an exodus season.
There was a point
at which
we experienced
God's goodness,
God's mercy,
where he reached
into our lives
and rescued us.
Sometimes maybe
just rescuing us
from ourselves.
In some cases
it may have been
sudden and dramatic.
In other cases
it may have been
outwardly undramatic
and took place
over a longer
stretch of time.
But those moments
become part
of our story.
And just as Israel
would from that day
forward always
recount the exodus story,
the way that God
had dramatically
rescued them,
we too tell
of those moments
in our story
in which God
rescued us
and graciously
intervened
in our lives.
But the long
road
to ultimate
freedom
and deeper
transformation
is not
for the most
part
marked by
a series
of endless
dramatic
interventions
by God
on our behalf.
God does do that.
Thank God.
God does not
want us
to remain
children.
The path
to Christian
maturity
means that
just as Jesus
begins to
speak to
his disciples
in a different
way,
and I would say
even a more
collaborative way,
as he does
here in Matthew 16,
at some point
Jesus will
also begin
to speak
to us
more seriously
and collaboratively
about what
following him
looks like.
He will begin
to reveal
to us
more specifically
in the unique
circumstances
of our own
lives
what it means
to carry
our cross
and follow him.
It's worth
pausing briefly
to ask what
Jesus means
by this,
to carry
our cross.
Some commentators
suggest that
burying one's cross
simply means
to patiently
endure the
various trials
of everyday
life.
On the other
hand,
some scholars
argue that
taking up
one's cross
means nonviolent
resistance to
the political
order or to
different forms
of social
oppression,
and I think
it's possible
for both of
these ways
to be part
of what it
means to
take up
our cross.
But along
with most
commentators,
I think that
taking up
one's cross
is a way
of speaking
about simply
the call
to deny
ourselves
when we
are tempted
to hold
on to
something that
competes
with deeper
devotion to
Christ.
And to
help us
do that,
to help
us learn
to get
over ourselves
and to
wean us
off those
temporal things
that keep
us from
a more
radical
freedom,
the Lord
may lead
us into
some
deserts.
The Lord
may have
rescued us
dramatically
in the
past,
he may
have
taken us
out of
Egypt,
but he's
going to
spend the
rest of
our lives
getting
Egypt
out of
us.
And that's
harder
and takes
longer.
And therefore
one of the
questions that
we might
occasionally ask
in our own
lives with
God is,
in what
areas of
my life
am I
still bound
to
Egypt?
In what
areas of
my life
am I
not truly
free?
Where
might I
be bound
by anger
or resentment?
Where
might I
still be
trapped
by my
desires?
Where
does a
longing
for
admiration
still
drive my
choices?
Where
does the
allure of
safety and
predictability
keep me
from responding
to that
inner nudge
to live
more radically?
Here's
something we
need to
remember.
The call
to take
up our
cross is
not
masochism.
It is
not pain
and suffering
for its
own sake.
What
does Jesus
say?
Whoever
loses his
life for
my sake
will
find it.
Taking
up one's
cross
is the
way to
joy.
When
Jesus
inaugurates a
new Exodus
story in
his life and
ministry,
he brings to
the blind
and the
deaf and
the oppressed
liberation
and freedom
and blessing.
But that is
not the end
of the story.
what Jesus
has liberated
in their
bodies is
simply a
sign of
what he
wants to
liberate in
their hearts.
And so
with us,
when Jesus
calls us to
take up our
cross and to
follow him,
it's not a
detour.
It's not
something just
to endure
and get
through.
It is a
continuation of
the Exodus
that Jesus
started in our
lives years
earlier.
it is that
deeper call
which will
include some
years in the
desert to
bring us into
even deeper
liberation and
freedom and
blessing.
A number of
years ago,
the New York
Times ran a
story about a
woman named
Osceola McCarty
who gave a
large sum of
money to
endow
scholarships at
a local
college in
her hometown
Mississippi.
What is
remarkable is
that she did
this at the
age of 87
and she did
not come from
wealth.
In fact,
she washed
and mended
clothes for
her entire
life.
She had
quit school
in the sixth
grade to go
to work,
never married,
never had
children.
But over the
decades, she
had felt led
by the Lord
to live as
simply as
possible and
to sock
away her
pay, which
primarily came
in the form of
dollar bills and
change.
And this
savings eventually
grew to nearly
$150,000.
The New York
Times article
reported that
Osceola decided
to give away the
money she had
saved over her
life to finance
scholarships for
black students at
the University of
Southern Mississippi.
University.
I wanted to
share my wealth
with children,
she said, and
perhaps make it so
that they wouldn't
have to work like
I did.
Once this was
announced, people
around the
university were
shocked and began
referring to it as
the gift.
And eventually,
over 600 other
people heard about
her gift, came
along and matched
it and more.
And today, that
scholarship is so
large that
significant numbers
of first-generation
black students go
to college on an
Osceola McCarty
scholarship.
And while Osceola
refused to have a
building named after
her or a statue in
her honor, the one
thing she asked
before she died was
to attend the
graduation of a
student who made
it through college
because of her
gift.
Osceola McCarty
was a faithful
member of Friendship
Baptist Church for
over 70 years, and
she had heard many
sermons during that
time.
What is clear is
that at some point
along the way, she
had truly internalized
Jesus' paradoxical
words from Matthew
16 that laying
things down is the
path to joy.
family.
Because when a
journalist from
People magazine asked
her why she didn't
spend at least some
of this money she'd
saved on herself, she
answered with a
smile, I am spending
it on myself.
Amen.