Imagine that you were there, with the disciples, or that you were one of the disciples, and Jesus starts explaining to you how he must undergo great suffering, be rejected, and be killed.
You have no knowledge of how this story ends. You don’t know about Easter, or resurrection, because those things haven’t happened yet.
In your mind, Jesus is God’s anointed one, sent to establish a new kingdom, over which he will rule with justice, just as King David ruled over a united Israel and Judah many generations past.
So when Jesus says that he will soon undergo great suffering, be rejected by the authorities, put on trial, and executed, it doesn’t make sense. You wonder: Is he serious?
And he mentions something about rising, but that doesn’t make any sense to you. Death is final—who knows what Jesus means by that?
So, when Peter rebukes Jesus, he’s just saying out loud what you and all the others are thinking. None of you wants to think about dying. Who wants to think about dying? I’m not going to die, you’re not going to die, and Jesus—yes! God forbid that Jesus ever die!
Let’s not even think about dying!
And yet, Jesus does want us to think about dying. He wants us to think about his dying; he wants us to know that he will die, and that his dying will not be from old age.
And, Jesus wants us to think about our own dying. “If your focus is on saving your life,” he says, “then you will lose it. But if you lose your life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, then you will save it.” ……
Rabbi Sharon Brous wrote a book that was just published a few weeks ago called The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend our Broken Hearts and World, which I am currently reading.
In one chapter, she tells the story of Robert, a member of her community, who was diagnosed with cancer, and told he had just a short time to live. Robert said that when he got his diagnosis, “his whole life came into sharp focus. His love of his daughter and wife was so profound and vivid he could almost touch it. He was determined to make every moment matter.
“But then, only a couple of weeks later, Robert's oncologist called with wonderful, improbable news: the initial diagnosis had been inaccurate; the tumor was benign.”
Robert said when he found out that he wasn’t about to die, “his sense of gratitude, wonder, and connectedness faded almost immediately.”
So, when Robert thought he was going to die, he started truly living; but then, when he found out he wasn’t going to die, at least not anytime soon, he stopped living so fully.
What is it about knowing we are about to die that makes us live life more meaningfully, and why can’t we find that meaning and purpose without that grim diagnosis? As Rabbi Rous writes, “What would it take for us to feel that urgency, lean into that purpose, without standing at the edge of death?”
I don’t know if we can. Maybe we need to come to terms with dying in order to truly live. Maybe that’s the only way.
As you know, many congregations are dying. This is a difficult time for houses of worship. But few are willing to face their dying head-on.
Many of these congregations live in denial. “Well, maybe things will get better,” they say. If anyone does have thoughts about the congregation’s dying, they keep those thoughts to themselves, and never say them out loud. They never talk about death so openly… as Jesus did.
But there are some congregations that, faced with their imminent death, have said quite openly, “we’re dying, and since we’re dying, we’re going to go out with a bang. We’re going to life as if this year is our last, because it quite likely is. We’re going to do all we can to help as many people as we can, for as long as we can, giving even more to our community…”
Which is actually the opposite of what all those churches-in-denial do, because they usually hold back from doing any outreach, because they are so focused on their own survival.
But often, those congregations who decide to go out with a bang, and who increase their outreach giving, knowing that they are about to fade away, draw attention. People are attracted to a congregation that is doing so much for others, even though the congregation has so little to sustain itself.
And sometimes, this attention draws more interest, and more visitors start showing up, and more people start joining the church, because this kind of self-sacrificial ministry is what interests them. They want to be part of a church that is doing something, making a difference, even if that church is only going to be around a few more years.
They’re not interested in joining a church that continues to limp along, doing very little except trying to prolong its own existence.
That church, the church that is so concerned with its own survival, will eventually die, because it’s not doing anything. Some would say that it has already died, it just hasn’t admitted or acknowledged that yet.
But the church that said “we’re dying, let’s go out with a bang…” Sometimes, because of the people who noticed how much it was doing for the community around it, a church like that begins to grow, and ends up finding new life. It’s happened, and it was a great, happy surprise to the people of those congregations who thought they were about to die. They said, “Let’s go out with a bang,” but they ended up getting new life.
“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 gospel, will save it.”
A church that is willing to die, or risk dying, for the sake of the world around it, is a church people want to be part of. They want to be part of a church like that, because that is a church that is making a difference.
That’s part of the upside-down kingdom of God, where everything works differently than we expect. The greatest is the one who serves. The first become last, and the last become first. The rich go hungry, and the poor eat until they are full… and those willing to die are the ones who find life renewed.
Many years ago, I was meeting with a group of church leaders who were discussing what they could do to stop their congregation’s decline. That was the number one question on their minds. One of them began the meeting by stating the question out loud: “What can we do to keep our doors open?”
I looked at her and said, “Keep them open for what?” The look on her face told me that she didn’t understand, so I said: “Why is it important for the church to keep its doors open?”
She said, “So the church doesn’t die.”
And I responded, “Why not let it die? What’s so important about keeping the church alive?”
And she couldn’t answer.
Now, if that church leader had responded, “We need to keep the church open because it tends to the physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental needs of its members and the community around it…
If she had responded, “We need to keep the church open because it is a beacon of hope to the community…
If she had responded, “We need to keep the church open because of all the ways we bring wholeness to a fragmented world…
If she had responded, “We need to keep the church open because it is a mission outpost of God’s kingdom, working for all things right and just in the world…
…If she had said any of those things, she would have been closer to the truth…
And it would have been even better if she had said, “Whether the church stays open or not is up to God, as long as we focus on what’s really important, what we’re called to do: living out the self-sacrificial love of Christ in all we do, following Christ’s way by denying ourselves and taking up our own cross for his sake.”
And, yes, I understand how hard it is to say such things, because every church I’ve been a part of, I’ve wanted to see it succeed, I’ve wanted to see it grow, I’ve wanted to see it prosper. And it is my hope that First Christian Church succeeds, grows, and prospers.
In fact, if I’m being honest, I probably care about such things a little too much. If I’m being honest, my thinking probably isn’t all that much different from the thinking of that church leader who I had that conversation with all those years ago. If I’m being honest, my mind is too often set on these human things, and not on divine things…
Which is why I’m pretty sure I’d be agreeing with Peter when he cuts Jesus off, refusing to accept that Jesus will suffer and die. It’s not what I want.
But unlike Peter, I do know how the story ends. And actually, Peter would know how the story ends, too, if he had listened to everything Jesus said: that, after three days, he would rise again; that those who are willing to lose their lives for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the gospel, will find their lives renewed and restored.
I guess the question is: do we have enough faith to believe that? Do we have enough faith to believe that, if we risk dying for Christ, that we will find our life renewed?
It’s like the decision Harry Potter had to make in the series of books by J.K. Rowling. Say what you will about the author—her own statements in recent years have been a great disappointment to many—but the most remarkable thing about the stories is how Harry Potter discovered that, in order to defeat Lord Voldemort, he, Harry, had to die. Only Harry Potter’s death—given willingly and sacrificially for those he loved—would allow him to achieve victory.
That’s the same decision Christians are faced with every day: Do we live for ourselves, or do we live sacrificially, for others? Is it possible for us to love the world so much—to love neighbors we don’t know, neighbors we’ve never meet, and even neighbors we have met and find difficult to love—can we love them anyway, to the point that we are willing to do what is right for them, even at great cost to ourselves?
By this measure, this standard, I know I come up woefully short. I fail at this all the time. It’s hard. It’s hard, even though I know that, in the end, new life will spring forth, that death leads to life, and that love overcomes all.
That’s what Lent reminds us. Lent begins in winter, when the world is cold, frozen, and when all appears lifeless—yet Lent ends in spring, when new life appears. And God is faithful, and the spring returns every year.
Lent begins in darkness. But already the days are getting longer, and by the time Easter arrives, we’ll have more hours of sunlight than hours of darkness.
Lent leads us through death. We follow Christ on the road to Jerusalem. We feel the love he showed to his disciples at the meal he knew would be his last. We hear the soldiers arrive and arrest him—and we hear the protests of the disciples. But the disciples soon fall into silence, as the self-sacrificial path becomes too much for them. They value their own lives too much to follow Jesus all the way to the cross.
And then, death comes on Good Friday.
But after that, on Sunday: resurrection! New life! And Jesus, full of compassion and love, greets his disciples, and entrusts the building of God’s kingdom to them. There is mercy and forgiveness, for the disciples are only human, and they are willing to keep walking with Christ, learning a little more every day about how they are called, even now, to love the world with the same love Christ had; how they are to live out that love, sacrificially, for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the world he came to save.
And every day I ponder that love, and how I can grow that love in me, and how we can grow that love in our church.
We’re on the right path, I think. We do give, in many ways, of ourselves, to those around us. We have a strong ReachOut ministry that I’m still learning about, and in so many other ways, we are showing true love to our community and our world. The love that is present here is genuine, and the prayers we offer up for one another and for the world are sincere.
There is so much sacrificial love present in this congregation and in the lives of you who are committed to this ministry, not just for the sake of the ministry, “to keep the lights on and the doors open,” but for the sake of the world we are called to serve.
We are on the right path.
But still, Christ calls us further. To keep walking. To keep growing in love. To keep growing in faith. To keep walking, humbly, with God and with one another, trusting in God to lead us, each and every day.
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