March 16, 2003 - Second Sunday of Lent
Romans 4:13-25
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Mark 8:31-38
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“The Way of the Cross”

‘Way,’ the dictionary tells us is a “thoroughfare, an opening or passage, or a route or course traveled from one place to another.”  The ‘Way of the Cross’ in Jerusalem is a thoroughfare and bears the name Via Dolorosa – the ‘way of sorrows.’  It is the course Jesus took from Pilate’s judgment to the cross.  During the crusades this route was replicated in European churches so the common folks could walk where the crusaders did.  The Way of the Cross continues to this day as a popular devotion in some churches, especially during the Lenten season.

However, the Way of the Cross is more than just a devotional exercise.  The Way of the Cross is, actually, a way of life for those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ – Christians.  For some, when they consider the importance of the Way of the Cross in Christian life, the focus is primarily on the Way as a Via Dolorosa – a “Way of Sorrows.”  Partially because that’s what that path is called in Jerusalem.  Also because they see the Cross only as an instrument of suffering and death.  So, as it is more than a devotional exercise, it is also more than just a way of sorrows.  There is far more to the Way of the Cross than most of us take the time to think about and, unfortunately, a great portion of it we simply take for granted.

The Way of the Cross is first of all a way of reconciliation and relationship.  When we say that we’ve come to the ‘heart’ of something we’ll sometime say that we’re at the ‘crux’ – the cross – of the issue.  The Way of the Cross goes to the heart of the human condition.  We struggle with the problem of pain and suffering, and do so especially with the problem of innocent suffering, in our world.  The Way of the Cross is God’s identification with us at the heart of that.  God desires to enter into deep relationship with humanity and is willing to do so at the deepest, most intimate level – embracing the fullness of our life, even our suffering and our death.  God shows that willingness in the work of Christ on the cross.

P.T. Forsyth, the English Congregational theologian from the turn of the last century, understood this better than just about anyone I’ve come across.  He noted that “There is nothing so prominent in Christ’s teaching as the Kingdom of God.  And about that Kingdom there was nothing to his mind so sure that it was the gift of God.  It came to the world from his grace, not from effort of ours. . .   We do not contribute to the Kingdom, we only work out a Kingdom which is ours wholly because our God works it in.”   Jesus proclaimed, as we heard last week, the “the Kingdom of God has come near.”  Its nearness is God’s gift to us and it is God’s act of reconciling love extended to us that shows itself on the cross.

Thus, Forsyth understood that there is a ‘cruciality’ to the cross, because on it humanity is raised to a new level of relationship with God.  In fact, Forsyth ventures that it is in the action of Christ on the cross that the kingdom of God is finally and irrevocably brought near to us.  He wrote: “Is the last victory won?  Are all things already put under the feet of God’s love and grace?  Have we in the Cross of Christ the crisis of all spiritual existence?  The Christian religion stands or falls with the answer of Yes to such questions. In his Cross, Resurrection and Pentecost Christ is the Son of God’s love with power. . . .  The thing is done, it is not to do.  ‘Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’  ‘This is the victory which has overcome the world – your faith.’”  The cross, then, is not the prelude to the Kingdom’s coming near, but is the sign that the Kingdom has broken into the reality of our world.  The Way of the Cross is God’s way of reconciling relationship, taking up the fullness of our human life and offering to us the possibility of transformation and renewal.

I know how odd it sounds, that an instrument of humiliation, suffering, and death can become the means for human triumph, but this would not be the first time that God has managed to “write straight with crooked lines.”  I think we can see that the Way of the Cross is a way that challenges our concept of God and God’s way of working among us.  So it should not be surprising to us that Peter reacts the way he does when Jesus announces his impending passion and death.  Peter is, in so many ways, all of us and thinks the same way most of us think.  If Jesus is really who we think he is – the Son of God – then he should be above all of this human misery stuff.  The Lord should rise above the fray of human existence and, instead, Jesus announces, “I’m going into the middle of it,” to the ‘crux’ if you will.

So, Peter reacts to what he sees as a violation of how things ought to be and offers a rebuke to Jesus.  Here the word ‘rebuke’ means to confront with the intent of a radical change.  Because Jesus isn’t fitting Peter’s model of what the Messiah should look like or act like, he sets out to correct Jesus.  Peter doesn’t want to leave Jesus, and he certainly doesn’t want Jesus to leave him, so he tries to set him straight on what a proper Messiah should be about.  In fact, Peter probably understood the Messiah to be some sort of triumphant Jewish Caesar, since he was to reestablish the throne of David and restore the golden heritage of Israel.

Jesus must then, in turn, rebuke Peter. He has to remind Peter “to get behind me,” in other words, that he’s gotten out of the proper place for a disciple.  The disciple follows and the role of the ‘Accuser’ (Satan) isn’t proper to it.  Jesus reminds Peter, and us, that the Way of the Cross isn’t the way either of human invention or of convenience.  It is, however, God’s way to get to the heart of the human condition and the way God begins to transform us and our attitudes toward ourselves, toward relationship and service, and even toward suffering and death.  The Way of the Cross is not something humans expect and that is why we’re reminded, as was Peter, that we’re to set our minds on “divine things” and not on human things, otherwise we’ll miss God at work right here among us – and often do, quite frankly.

The Way of the Cross, then, is also a way of faith, a way of deep trust.  It’s not something that we expect or can conceive of ourselves, that suffering and death can actually be redemptive and bring life is foreign to our experience.  We can only begin to take these thoughts in through the gift of faith.  Paul tells the church at Rome how faith brought about change in the life of Abraham.  Abraham heard the promise of God, believed it, followed and, as Paul says, “his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

We live in a world where trust is a rare, and precious, commodity.  Think about the situation in the world of commerce where all sorts of companies are under scrutiny because they have lost the essential trust of investors, of employees, and of customers.  How many companies, like Enron, sought to inspire trust and then simply, outright betrayed it?  All of us have seen the effect of their betrayal of trust; some of us have even felt it financially.  So to talk about trust in this day and age when business and government, and yes even the churches, are under the microscope for violating trust is almost a risky thing.

Still, Paul proclaims that Abraham found God trustworthy and responded accordingly.  God came into Abraham’s life, as we read in Genesis, and called him to leave everything familiar, walk a new and different road, and achieve a destiny he never thought possible.  Abraham packed up his belongings, grabbed his wife and went, because he knew in his heart that this mysterious voice was trustworthy.  His faith drew him and sustained him time-after-time.  I would suppose that we could say that Abraham not only modeled the virtue of faith, but hope as well.  The early Church teacher Origen says it best: “As always, when the apostle Paul talks about faith, he adds hope as well, and rightly so, for hope and faith are inseparable. . . .   Just as Abraham believed against hope, so all believers do the same, for we all believe in the resurrection of the dead and the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven.  These appear to go against hope as far as human nature is concerned, but when we take the power of God into consideration, there is no problem.”

“When we take the power of God into consideration, there is no problem.”  Wonderful words, aren’t they?  Quite frankly, for me, it is the Way of the Cross that expresses God’s power and manifests that trust in a concrete manner.  Through the cross God has demonstrated trustworthiness.  Through the cross God has extended God’s self in a powerful, positive way toward us.  And there’s the final point I want to make about the Way of the Cross; it is a way taken up voluntarily and for others.

How often do we hear the expressions, “Oh, that’s his cross to bear” or “Poor thing, she certainly has her cross to carry”?  While they may be based on what Jesus says in Mark’s Gospel, do they really express what he meant?  No. I’m afraid that they don’t.  What those expressions reflect is a burden, a nuisance, or an obstacle placed upon them either by nature or by circumstance.  A person is born blind. Someone ends up with a crippling injury.  A fifty-something person loses his or her job just short of retirement.  The list, of course, could be endless.  However, what they describe, though burdensome, are not crosses, at least in the manner that the Gospel is trying to express.

Why?  Well, first of all none of these situations are assumed willingly.  Jesus goes to the cross, even though he would prefer not to.  Life is full of things that we can’t avoid that we have to confront or with which we have to deal.  The cross could have been evaded, however.  Jesus prays, “Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.”  Jesus wants his will to conform to that of the Father and chooses the Way of the Cross.  In doing so, he models for us the way of unselfish, self-giving love that is at the core of what God wants for God’s world.

In that act of self-giving Jesus also shows us that the cross is something one takes up for others.  It’s not an accident and it should be redemptive, it should do something positive for someone else.  We don’t take up our cross to get praise or pity, to build up salvation points, or even to do penance for sins.  We take it up because we love God and we love God’s people and this is the way that shows that love.

I came across an excerpt from a sermon by a minister named David Hunter that fairly neatly sums up the positive effect of the Way of the Cross.  Reverend Hunter told his congregation: “The real significance of the cross for us today is that it propels us forward.  Our view of the present and the future is radically colored by God’s love.  It means that we, too, may make sacrifices to communicate love and care for others.  We, too, may take risks as we live out the gospel we have received by grace.  As a congregation, we are reaching out to our community to make an impact.  God’s love is expressed in our support for local charities and international missions.  God’s love is expressed in the friendly welcome we extend to everyone who comes through our doors.  God’s love is expressed in Christian service and the kindness we show when we leave this building.  God’s love is expressed when we realize that it’s not on Sunday morning that the cross of Christ can have its strongest effect, but on all the days when we are confronted with the temptation to put ourselves first; when we are challenged to demonstrate God’s love by our actions and words.”  Amen, David.  I couldn’t say it better.

The Way of the Cross is more than a devotional exercise.  It’s a way of life and a way of being.  It’s a way that calls us into relationship that challenges us on multiple levels, invites us to trust God, and then calls us to live toward others.  God took the first step on the Way and continues to extend toward us.  The question to us is how do we respond to the challenge: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me”?  The thoroughfare is open, the passage is cleared, and the course set and God has taken the first steps along the way.  Now we have to determine that we will walk the Way.