Lent 2 B: Take Up Your Cross

Mark 8:31-38

Dear Partner in Preaching,

Some will see in this Sunday’s passage a call to be patient and long-suffering in the just cause, and in this sense to take up one’s cross, and I’m sympathetic to that counsel. Others will hear the promise that all things, even something as awful as the cross, work together, in the words of the Apostle, “for the good of the one who believes” (Rom. 8:28) and so invite us to take up our cross trusting that God is in control, and I’ve seen that counsel provide comfort during difficult times. Still others will ask what things we’ve used to try to save our lives rather than giving ourselves over to the solitary and difficult work of justice and ask whether we are ashamed of Jesus’ words, and that’s certainly a reading that demands our attention. Yet while all of these are possible interpretations, none quite captured my imagination this week.

Rather, I think the call of these week’s passage, particularly amid the brutality and violence that seem to permeate the world, is to be willing to embrace the pain of others – rather than explain it, simply seek to comfort it, fit it into some larger plan, or even merely decry it – trusting that God is in the midst of our brokenness, working for and calling us to life. Let me unpack that just a little bit more.

I have been struck over my years of ministry that perhaps the one thing that unifies us most fully is that each of us has experienced brokenness: it may be the abandonment of a parent, the betrayal of a loved one, the loss of a child, the death of a dream, the oppression of those who hold power over us, or any number of other things. Yet this fact remains: to live is to struggle, to hurt, and to experience loss and brokenness.

I have also been struck by the reality that on most occasions we would prefer to hide that brokenness from others. Perhaps that desire comes from a kind of embarrassment – we do not know if others will respect us if we show our wounds. Or perhaps it comes from a fear of being vulnerable – we wonder if others will take advantage of us when our guard is down. Or perhaps it comes from a fear of being overwhelmed by our loss and grief. I don’t know; I suspect it is all of these and more, varying from occasion to occasion. But I do know that we tend to favor strength, health, and self-sufficiency, or at least the appearance of these things, over weakness, pain, and dependence.

But while this predisposition may be understandable, I think that ultimately it is neither faithful to the Gospel nor likely to draw us more deeply toward becoming the persons we have been called to be. Indeed, my reading of this passage this week is that we are called to take up our cross expecting that God is most clearly and fully present in the suffering and brokenness of the world. We are called to take up our cross by being honest about our brokenness and thereby demonstrate our willingness to enter into the brokenness of others. We are called to take up our cross because we follow the One who not only took up his cross but also revealed that nothing in this world, not even the hate and darkness and death that seemed so omnipresent on that Friday we dare call good, can defeat the love and light and life of God.

Denying brokenness and pain may indeed be so incredibly understandable. Just as understandable as Peter being struck sideways by the possibility that God’s promised Messiah had come not to conquer and rule but rather to suffer and die. No wonder Peter rebuked Jesus. Peter knew where to look for God and it was in places of strength. (Isn’t that almost exactly what we mean when we speak of God’s omnipotence?) For this reason, he could only imagine that grief, loss, betrayal, suffering, and death were things to avoid at all costs because they seemed to him to be, quite literally, God-forsaken. Yet in the cross God demonstrates that there is no place God refuses to go in the quest to love and redeem us.

Yet here we should be both clear and careful: entering into another’s pain and loss is not the end of the story. When we embrace each other’s brokenness, we experience first that God is with us through the cross and then also hear and experience God calling us to life and courage in and through the resurrection. How that resurrection call will take shape is hard to predict. Perhaps it will be to believe without question the person who has shared a story of sexual assault or to stand unflinchingly with a person seeking fair treatment. Perhaps it will be to keep faith with the one who no longer remembers you because of dementia or to hold vigil with the one near death’s door. Perhaps it will be to call for action when action needs to be taken. However God’s cross and resurrection call comes, embracing another’s pain will not stop with “thoughts and prayers” but moves also to love for, and action with and on behalf of, those for whom we are praying.

Why? Two reasons. First, I don’t think we can stand with people by standing over them, that is, reaching from our places of strength to comfort or help them. We meet people most truly when we admit and embrace that we are like them (sounds like incarnation, doesn’t it?). Second, when we discover that God is not absent but indeed fully and powerfully present in our brokenness, it transforms how we look at everything and emboldens us in the struggles of this life. After all, if loss and suffering and death cannot separate us from God’s love, then what is there to fear?

This is not an easy road, Dear Partner, and it will not all be travelled in a single sermon, or even in a season of sermons, but it can start – actually needs to start – by recognizing that what unites us – to each other and to Christ – is our suffering, suffering that should not be glorified but yet is nevertheless hallowed by God’s commitment to be joined to it. And if we can offer and create the possibility for a moment of candor and vulnerability, we will make room for the God of cross and resurrection to encounter, call, and eventually transform us and our people. Thank you for your part in this process, for the steps you help us take in this journey. I could not imagine taking this road without you.

Yours in Christ,
David