Oct 25th: What Is My Cross to Bear?, with Rev. Barry Heath.

WATCH:

What Is My Cross to Bear?, with Rev. Barry Heath. A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Matt. 16. 21-24.
Those carrying unexpected hardships often wonder if there’s a different way to understand pain. This week’s message offers a fresh view of the cross, not as a symbol of empire’s power, but as a source of hope and strength in the midst of life’s burdens. It invites listeners to discover how true identity and compassion can reshape suffering. Join First Presbyterian Church online or in person this Sunday to explore this hopeful perspective.
Transcript:
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello. My name is Barry Heath. I’m one of the retired pastors at First Presbyterian Church in Bend. The sc- scripture that we’re going to be looking at this morning, I’m bringing to you in the context of some events that have taken place just about a week and a half ago in Bend. They really are events that shook our community. And I want to say one other thing about what you’re going to hear. You’ll hear the term empire several times in what I want to share. And I’d like you to think about empire not only in terms of its implication about the way government does things, but really about the ways that we’ve learned to live in our life. So we’re going to take a look at Matthew. Matthew is what is maybe called the Anti-Empire Gospel. Think about the stories that you know from Matthew.
Speaker 0 00:00:52 For example, Matthew is the only gospel that has the story of the wise men or the astrologers seeking to find Jesus after his birth. On their way to find Jesus, they go to Herod, the vessel in the Roman Empire in German, in Jerusalem, and ask him where they can find the child who has been born King of the Jews. And they’re told by Herod to return to him with news of where to find the child so that he can go, this child that is rumored to be this king. But instead of doing this, the astrologers are warned in a dream not to return to Herod and they go back home a different way. It’s one of the first indications that Matthew is telling a story where the empires of this world are to be resisted, that this new child is going to usher in a new way of living that isn’t governed by the rule, the ethics, the morals, or the power of the empire.
Speaker 0 00:01:51 Matthew is saying consistently in this gospel that the ways of the earthly kingdoms and of the empire are not what Jesus is about. And Jesus teaches it’s not what his followers should be about either. Jesus’ message, his whole life is about a new way of living in the world. It’s not about living according to the rules and ways of empire, but of the radically new way of living in God’s creation according to God’s laws, morals and ethics. So now we’re ready to look at today’s text, understanding this context of Matthew’s gospel. Our text takes place as Jesus is preparing to go into Jerusalem where he knows the events that are to take place, his own trial, death and resurrection, where there will be the final battle, if you will, between the ways of empire and the way of God’s realm. As Jesus approaches the stage of this final battle, he wants his followers to follow him and he wants to teach
Speaker 1 00:02:58 Them that what he is doing is for their life, even as it will require his own death. Jesus’ sacrifice and death will lead to resurrection so that any crosses his followers may take up that come their way in their life will not be the last word where the crosses of the empire lead to death, the crosses of following Jesus lead to a resurrected life. From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him saying, God forbid this Lord, this must not happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me Satan, you are a stumbling block to me for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.
Speaker 1 00:04:02 When then Jesus told his disciples, if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. In our passage, Peter beerates Jesus for saying that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer and be killed and on the third day be raised. He says, God forbid this, it cannot be so. And Jesus in turn beerates Peter saying, You’re a stumbling block to me Peter, for you’re setting your mind not on divine things, but on the human way of doing things. Jesus is saying quite clearly to Peter, and I think Matthew is saying to us, the way of God, the way of following Jesus is not to obey the rules and methods of empire or as he says to Peter, setting your mind on the human things that you’ve learned during your life, but to follow this new way that I have been teaching, the way of God’s realm, not of empire’s kingdom.
Speaker 1 00:05:08 Jesus is saying to Peter, Don’t be a stumbling block to this way, Peter, to the divine way of doing things. What Peter can’t see is that Jesus’ suffering and death and resurrection will completely destroy the supposed power of Empire’s way of living and show that not only is God’s way of living the way Jesus must live as he goes to Jerusalem, but it’s the way his followers are to live as well. So now in our text, Jesus turns to the followers and says to us, if any want to become my followers, to live in God’s new kingdom and not according to the rules of Empire’s kingdom, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For many, this passage has been a stumbling block to understanding and following Jesus. Some have understood this passage to mean that Jesus’ way is to live a life of martyrdom and suffering and death.
Speaker 1 00:06:17 In fact, the more suffering one can experience for Jesus’ sake some are taught, the greater will be their reward in heaven. These beliefs could not be more off the mark of understanding Jesus’ message. True, the cross for the Roman Empire and for those who call for Jesus’ crucifixion is an instrument of suffering and death. But Jesus’ use of the cross is meant to contrast that understanding of empire’s cross with the way of the cross in following Jesus. So my friends, we need to rethink what the cross means to follow Jesus. Empire’s cross is an instrument of power, but it’s used over people to subjugate them to empire’s will. Its ultimate power is the power of death. But God’s cross is the story of Jesus and it’s an instrument of life over death, of sacrifice for others and in service to others. Indeed, the life of Jesus, the cross, isn’t about death, but about God’s power over death.
Speaker 1 00:07:30 It’s not about suffering to gain some reward, it’s about facing the realities of life in the faith of the resurrection. So when Jesus says, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me, what is he asking of us? What is our cross to bear?
Speaker 1 00:07:52 Let me recognize something about the events that we have experienced in our life that feel like crosses we must bear. Some are even taught that God brings these crosses to our life to test us. And if we have enough faith, we’ll pass the test and receive some reward. This is the kind of teaching that’s behind the piece of advice of some well-meaning people that I heard over and over again when I worked in the emergency room when they came to people who were suffering and they said, you know, God never gives you more than you can bear. I want us to know this. It’s not the theology or teaching of Jesus. It’s not behind the meaning of take up your cross and follow me. Never did Jesus teach this when he was with the vulnerable, the suffering, the people who came to him for healing and compassion.
Speaker 1 00:08:48 He taught them a different lesson. He taught them that he is with them in their suffering. He did not come to teach them or test them with suffering. So if we’re honest with ourselves, if we lived long enough, we all have received pain in life that feels like a cross, that almost kills us at times and in some ways does kill a part of our life, the part of our life that we expected would always continue. Well, my friends, recently we have experienced the suffering that has come to families of young children and of a teacher whose lives have been cut short, the suffering of those who have been injured and their families. We think recently of the suffering of the first responders and healthcare professionals who came to help. There are no words to capture or understand fully the depth of their suffering. It must be the experience and weight of a cross that feels like there is no real life for them after these deaths, that violence has had the last word.
Speaker 1 00:10:01 And today we’re still struggling, struggling to know how to handle our own suffering, let alone how to help others in their suffering. Jesus was speaking to his followers and when he told them he must go to Jerusalem to die and on the third day be raised from the dead, Peter is our voice when he says, “No Lord, God forbid such suffering and death.” And Jesus’ answer at first is not helpful at all. He says, “He is taking up a cross and his followers must take up their cross if they want to follow him.” How can this be? How can taking up a cross, a symbol of suffering and death in the world of empire be following Jesus? The world of empire says that the cross is used for punishment. That’s empire thinking. That kind of thinking, if it’s applied to God, makes God out as some kind of tyrant, a dictator of an empire who passes out blessings and trials to either reward or test the followers.
Speaker 1 00:11:13 Surely this is not the cross that Jesus says we are to take up and it is not. Instead, Jesus’ compassion for those who suffer in life teaches us that life is hard, not because of rewards and punishments, that’s the empire system. That system died on the cross that Jesus bore. Instead, Jesus was teaching his followers that he must go to Jerusalem to end this view of life, to show in his own death and resurrection that God’s care for us in our suffering when life is hard is the true power that we can lean on. The deaths that life brings us are not the end of God’s care, but in fact, in the tombs of those life experiences, God has not abandoned us, but stays with us to hold us in the darkness, to carry us, to give God’s strength when our own strength profoundly cannot get us through.
Speaker 1 00:12:28 So when these unwanted crosses come our way, as they have in this recent time for us, remember, Jesus also suffered at the hands of life’s trials and his compassion for the suffering he met in others brought, he brought to them a place of rest where there was no demand for more of their own strength to get them through, but a place, even one that feels like a tomb, but a place that you can be restored, a place where one can eventually put one foot in front of the other to live another day, maybe just even another moment. To live with this faith and understanding amid the hard realities of life, that’s to take up the cross of Jesus and find in these unwanted crosses we bear in life, strength, perseverance, hope, endurance and the promise of resurrection. So these unwanted crosses come to us in life.
Speaker 1 00:13:39 We bear them to find in these times of the limits of our own strength and power, the resurrected power of God that we can lean on, where we don’t carry this cross by ourselves, but where we find God holding us and some of the weight of that cross until we can come out of this tomb experience to continue our journey of life. Jesus was also teaching his followers about another kind of cross that they are to take up. These are the crosses that we willingly take up and carry when we live a life following Jesus, when we try with our best efforts to live a life according to the values, morals and ethics of the way of Jesus. Jesus said in our text, his followers must deny themselves and take up their cross. What could that mean? In following Jesus, to deny oneself means coming to know the identity we were born with in our very first breath, the identity of our true self that God created within us, our identity as a child of God, the identity given to us as a gift, not one that is earned.
Speaker 1 00:15:04 That is our true identity. The identity that we are to deny is the identity of empire where we are taught to be a success by our own willpower, to be self-made, self-sufficient people. In fact, to be independent people, to care more about ourselves and our achievements than we care about others. And some learn from empire’s ways to solve problems with violence. This is the false self. This is the self we are to deny when we follow Jesus. To live voluntarily the way of life of Jesus, to take up that cross requires us to have the perspective of our true self that God created in us and not the ego-driven self we learn from empire. With this perspective, we view all people as children of God. With this perspective, I must even look at a 16 year old who committed unspeakable violence as one who in his creation was made a child of God, but who somehow during his life lived in the ways of empire, became so troubled in his mind and spirit as to bring violence and death upon others.
Speaker 1 00:16:37 With this perspective of being a child of God, those who suffer in life are God’s children waiting for a good Samaritan to come along. With this perspective, our faith calls us to respond, to participate in God’s way of life. With this perspective, we are empowered to make choices, different choices of love and service that are the way of this cross we are to take up and follow Jesus. Let us note something in our text. Jesus did not say take up my cross, but your cross. We are not called to be Jesus. We are called to be the child of God that God created along with our true identity that God gives us at our birth. God also gives us unique gifts that we are called to use as we follow Jesus. To take up your cross, to follow Jesus means not hiding or denying the real suffering present in life, not giving up because we experience that our own strength and resources just can’t be enough to take away all the suffering of others, but we can face the needs of the overwhelming world with God’s help and strength.
Speaker 1 00:18:01 And if we will do this, then, then our life and even our very being can strive in the messiness of life lived under what we’ve experienced every day because we are followers of Jesus. We are people of the resurrection that is possible with God. So yes, take up your cross to follow Jesus, to live authentic faith, not in what we can see, but in the unseen, the unseen child of God that you carry within you, that’s your true identity. And the strength and power of God to live that identity, that’s your cross to bear. This is our faith we hold within our hearts and spirits. It is the unseen victory of God over empire. Let us take up our cross and follow Jesus. Amen.