Lent 2 Take up your cross

When I sat down to read through today’s gospel my first thought was

“Oh cripes! I would NEVER have chosen this on a Sunday when I’m hoping to persuade everyone of the joy of engaging in community. Actually, I’d probably never have chosen it at all...”

And yet, here it is – and, thanks to the lectionary, that makes us engage with the whole of scripture, and not just our favourite bits, here I am preaching on it anyway. Perhaps it’s one of those passages with which I must, like Jacob, wrestle for a blessing...so that I can share that blessing with you this morning. Let’s just take a deep breath and see how we get on.

It’s not going to be easy.

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospelwill save it.For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 

Take up their cross?

Lose their life?

That's supposed to be GOOD news? here we have it, straight from the Master himself

Far from precluding suffering, faith seems to guarantee it, but I'm not really sure that I signed up to that. Following Jesus is all very well – but does that have to mean walking the way of the cross? Couldn’t we skip the hard parts and major on the hope of resurrection?

As so often in the gospel, Peter is my ally, saying all the things that would have been uppermost in my thoughts too. Here’s Jesus preaching like doom and despair...quite openly! And Peter, desperately anxious about bad PR, taking his Master aside to suggest that he might offer something more palatable. After all, who wants to follow someone whose future includes suffering, rejection and death?

I’d have been anxious to hush that up too…In fact, that’s pretty much the root of my reluctance to actually get on and preach on this gospel, isn’t it! I want good news to be straightforward, unmistakeable, because after all – that’s the way life is.

Except, of course, that it isn’t.

Not one little bit.

Life is complex...sometimes joyful, sometimes sad and hard beyond all expectation. We don’t have to raise our eyes very far this morning to find evidence of that -with the deaths of Casper and Corey just down the road from us here. or those 17 who died in Parkland, Florida, or the hundreds killed in and around Damascus…

And for each of those deaths, others whose lives have been changed in a moment. Who bear the weight of grief and bewilderment, anger and despair. Who are carrying a cross, right enough – and finding its weight overwhelming.

We need, then, a gospel that enables us to cope with that, since it seems that we

won’t be able to fast forward to the Resurrection, without anyone having to go through the tough stuff?

It’s true that Jesus can and will carry all of that for us…

your sadness, my disappointment, our anger and doubt, denial and despair..

That's what makes the weight of the cross that he carries.

But we are invited, encouraged to carry it too...to learn to be Christlike by sharing in his suffering even as we hope to share in his glory.

Crosses are forged from many things, each unique to the bearer. The experiences of brokenness in our own lives, the awareness of the times we've failed God and failed each other, our lack of love, our lack of trust.

And things that just seem to be part of life – a difficult marriage, a sick partner an unplanned loneliness...things we might prefer to jettison, but find ourselves having to carry day by day by day.

Bespoke crosses, yours quite unlike mine, maybe lighter, maybe not...but part of the point of being a community is that we can, and we must, strive to bear one another’s burdens.

[That’s such an important aspect of being human and being Church, you know.

Weeping with those that weep is not an optional extra, - and nor is rejoicing with those who rejoice. As we continue to learn, through Lent and beyond, what it means to be God’s people once again, we will be one another’s best teachers. Though many will assert that you can be a Christian in isolation, the journey is both easier and immeasurably richer when we follow Christ TOGETHER…

That, of course, is why we care about small groups, and are focussing on them today. We need places where a deeper relationship can be forged than is possible simply over Sunday coffee or a quick exchange at the door. Whether those groups exist explicitly to encourage discipleship, or whether they are all about exploring a shared interest – in music, walking, the history of the blitz – they are the places where we can begin to trust each other a little more day by day, with joys and sorrows, worries and delights. While I may not feel brave enough to bare my soul on a large stage, I’m very thankful for a safe space to be honest about my particular crosses, a place where I can feel confident that someone will set to and carry me in prayer, even as I try to carry them in return.

“It is not good for man to be alone”, observed God at the very beginning – and Church should be the place where we can most surely trust one another with the hard stuff, can recognise when someone is floundering under their burdens, and reach out to help them with their load.]

Sometimes, of course, we carry things quite needlessly.

We insist on holding onto something that SEEMS precious, something for which we've struggled and fought, something apparently more alluring than Christ's call to deny ourselves, take up those wretched crosses once again and follow him.…

We prefer to load ourselves with other things...as individuals and as communities too

We can become confused about what really matters, clinging on to something for the sake of tradition, or pursuing something that seems good but which is really of secondary importance. Perhaps this Lent might be a time to reflect on how we might let go of things like that – and a good few other things too. They are NOT part of our crosses, those prizes that seem so shiny and alluring now – health, wealth, success, even family stability. In fact they turn out to be so much dead-weight, things we can't take with us into the Kingdom.

“What will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

Jesus knows, I promise, how hard it can be to put those deceptive weights down…

Jesus knows, too,the weight of each cross that we have to bear.

And he knows, and wants us to discover, how the way of the cross leads through pain and suffering to the new life of Easter.

It's into this that we are baptised...sharing Christ's death so that we might also share his resurrection.

So, there's our good news.  We, God's people, travelling togethet in faith, hope and love, will find the way of the cross most truly the way of life and peace.
Thanks be to God!