As we move through Lent, we’re going to be coming face to face with Jesus the radical. This is important for us because no popular representation of Jesus in our media comes anywhere near the real Jesus we meet in the Gospels.
Question: How radical was Jesus of Nazareth for his day? Answer: very. He was so radical that every conservative group at the time, without exception, conspired to do away with him. He was provocative. He was confrontational. His words were routinely inflammatory. His actions were, at times, deeply incendiary. I sometimes worry that if Jesus if he was walking around Britain today I would take offence at him.
Six bastions of the establishment of Jesus day, namely the Pharisees, the Elders, the Teachers of the Law, the Sadducees, the Scribes and the monarchy of King Herod were often hostile towards each other but they saw in Jesus a common threat because he challenged the status quo and defied every vested interest of his day.
You can see why he was so controversial just by reading the Gospels at face value. We tend to read them in a sanitised way that takes the militant edge off.
Consider the Gospel of Mark, as it’s the shortest of the four. In every chapter of Mark’s Gospel Jesus shows just why he was so deeply unpopular with the powers that be and why he would certainly be widely disliked by many decent people today.
The Seattle-based church leader Mark Driscoll, himself a bit of a rabble-rouser, summarises this quite starkly (and I’m going to use his material now, but adapt it slightly for our context).
In the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus starts off by yelling at complete strangers to repent of their sin, tells four strangers to leave their jobs and orders a demon to shut up.
In chapter 2, he picks an argument with some well-mannered religious leaders and does the first century equivalent of breaking into a church to make a sandwich with the communion bread because he was hungry.
In chapter 3, Jesus’ family try and take hold of him saying he is out of his mind. He responds by ignoring his own mother and people conclude he must be possessed.
In chapter 4, Jesus is so alarmingly lax on health and safety; that his disciples ask him in exasperation if he even cares if they drown or not.
In chapter 5, Jesus kills two thousand pigs.
In chapter 6, Jesus offends yet more people and sends his disciples out on an exorcism mission with no qualifications and no equipment.
In chapter 7, Jesus launches into a lengthy tirade labelling the local hardworking clergy as ‘hypocrites’ and compares a woman with a sick child to a dog.
In chapter 8, Jesus spits on a handicapped man, and scolds his most trusted follower, addressing him as ‘Satan’.
In chapter 9, Jesus asks his disciples, ‘How long do I have to put up with you?’ That’s just before telling some other people to cut off their hands and feet and to gouge out their eyes.
In chapter 10, Jesus says remarriage after divorce is adultery. He then tells a rich man to sell all his stuff and give the proceeds to people on benefits.
In chapter 11, he tells one of his men to take someone else’s donkey without asking, proceeds to curse and kill a fig tree then goes on to vandalise some small businesses.
In chapter 12, Jesus tells the highest theological authority in the land that they don’t know their Bibles. He also tells some Sunday school teachers they are going to hell.
In chapter 13, Jesus sets off alarm bells when he threatens to completely flatten the most iconic religious building in the Middle-East.
In chapter 14, Jesus castigates his friends for having the temerity to take a nap at night having run them all over the Middle-East for about three years.
In chapter 15, the religious elite kill him for all of the above, which seems perfectly fine to everyone - except a few women.
The story ends in chapter 16 with Jesus alive again and the trembling, astonished, and frightened disciples being told to speak in tongues, handle snakes and offend the whole world with the gospel.
Now, by any standards, that’s hardcore isn’t it?
Today’s short passage in Matthew 16 focuses in on the standard Jesus set to qualify as one who follows him – the word is disciple. It basically means “apprentice” or “learner”. Are you a disciple? Well, what have you learned from Jesus over the last month?
The word “disciple” is connected to words like discipline. That sort of tells you that it’s not for the faint hearted.
The word ‘discipline’ usually has negative connotations in our culture. It’s not a word we get enthusiastic about on the whole. People tend to link it to the notions of hardship and punishment. But discipline is really about fitness.
Discipline may not be pleasant, in fact the Bible says it isn’t, but would you like to be defended in a war zone by an undisciplined army? Do you want to share a train carriage with undisciplined children? Children without loving discipline never learn healthy, safe boundaries and become spoilt and insecure. You dieters, what would you give for a shot of self-discipline when on your own in a room with a box of chocolates? Dieters without self-discipline stay overweight.
I was watching a training DVD with the staff team the other month. The speaker was a Clinical Psychologist called Henry Cloud. He was explaining that he had decided to get back in shape after putting on a few kilos so he hired a personal trainer in a gym. And he said “She was beating the hell out of me, putting me through these punishing work outs; press ups, pull ups, treadmills, rowing machines, weights, stretching, cross trainers. It was hard.”
And then a few weeks into this gruelling programme he suddenly stopped right in the middle of an exercise and said, “Oh no! We didn’t take any ‘before’ pictures. You know, to compare the physique before and after.” She looked at him and said “Oh, we can still take them!”
If I can be politically incorrect for just a moment, the point is that following Jesus is not a cushy hobby for wimps and tree-huggers. Jesus was never interested in attracting admirers or hangers-on. He calls disciples. On his terms.
John Wimber used to talk about the shock some Christians get when they wake up and realise that Jesus is not joking here. Wimber said that it’s a bit like a guy who thinks he’s going on a luxury cruise around the Mediterranean. He packs his suntan lotion, shorts and sunglasses and heads down to the docks. But when he gets there, instead of seeing a nice, smart cruise liner there’s just an enormous grey ship with gun turrets and numbers painted on the side!
So meet the authentic Jesus; Jesus the radical.
Following Jesus Means Operating in God’s Wisdom, Not Man’s
Matthew 16 and verse 21 says this:
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Note the imperatives. “He must go.” “He must be killed.”
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Peter is in Neverland here. Always be cautious of advice from a friend who says to you, “Surely God doesn’t want you to face this.” Beware of a solution to a problem that looks suspiciously like an escape or an opt-out for a comfortable, unchallenged life. That’s not the real world; that’s Neverland.
Verse 23: Jesus turns and says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
It must have stung Peter to hear those words. Let us not try and sanitise them or brush them under the carpet. They are severe aren’t they? I can just see everyone cringing as he said it. Couldn’t Jesus have been a little more diplomatic? A little less abrasive? Why did Jesus give Peter such a humiliating rebuke?
He was right to. The reason goes back to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. If you’re familiar with the Gospels, you’ll recall his 40 days in the desert when Satan comes to test him. Three times, the devil tries to divert Jesus from his mission.
The second temptation is about achieving greatness – only without the cross. “If you’re really the Son of God, throw yourself off the temple roof” says Satan “you know, the Bible says that angels will catch you.” In other words, “You don’t need to go to the cross to be revered by the people. That’s the last thing you want to do Jesus. They’ll love you if you just put on a great show. You could be a celebrity, a national treasure! You could win Israel’s Got Talent!”
Peter is saying the same thing here as the devil did then. “You don’t need to go to the cross. You mustn’t let that happen! You crucified? Over my dead body! Never, Lord!” That’s why Jesus says “Get behind me Satan.”
If Peter had got his way then there would be no cross, no resurrection, no salvation for the world and you and I would be lost forever.
Following Jesus Means the Way of the Cross
So Jesus says to his disciples (v24), “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
This is a phrase that has come into our English language hasn’t it? If someone has a nagging wife or a flatulent husband or a dodgy hip or a boring job - or all four… “Oh, it’s a cross I have to bear.”
When Jesus said these words, everyone knew what he was talking about because the sight of convicted criminals carrying their crosses was commonplace in Roman occupied Judea in the first Century. Once a condemned man had been flogged, he had to lug his cross through the streets to his execution site. It is an image of utter shame and rejection.
From the very beginning to the present day, Christians have always been targets of ridicule and derision. They always will be. People will rarely admire you for being a full-on follower of Jesus.
The series of court cases Christians have lost in this country for standing up for their faith may dismay us but it is actually consistent with most of history.
Last year former BBC news anchor Peter Sissons said Christians are “fair game” for insults at the corporation, whilst Muslims must not be offended. The head of the BBC, Mark Thompson, in an interview for a research project at the University of Oxford, admitted recently that the broadcaster would never mock Mohammed like it mocks Jesus.
Bottom line: Jesus himself said it would be like this. He said that those who follow him can expect to be discriminated against and worse. “Everyone will hate you because of me”, he said.
But carrying the cross is not just a picture of rejection and ridicule; it’s also an image of true and total commitment. Once a criminal picked up his cross, there was only going to be one outcome. “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.”
This is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” For him, it was a literal death at the hands of the Nazis for speaking out in the name of Christ against the idolatry and wickedness of the Third Reich. For most of us, we will be asked no more than to die to ourselves; our ambitions and our vanities.
“For whoever wants to save their life” says Jesus in v25, “will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?”
Jesus makes it very clear here: The choices you make here and now directly determine how you will spend eternity.
Nothing we accumulate here on earth; our wealth, our pension, any honours or tributes from our glittering careers, our possessions, our reputation and our privileges … none of that has any value in securing eternal life.
C.S. Lewis put it this way: “Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” Where do you think you’re aiming?
Before coming to faith in Christ I made choices about what I was going to do as if this life was all I had. Once anyone becomes a follower of Jesus, that thinking has to go.
Ending
Last year I read a book by Francis Chan called Crazy Love. It’s good stuff. He writes in that book about full-blooded Christianity, that is to say what we’ve been looking at this morning, and anaemic Christianity, the very opposite of it. Jesus called half-hearted, indifferent people “lukewarm.” He said it makes him sick. Don’t be lukewarm!
Anyway, Chan made a list of a dozen things that mark Christians out as lukewarm.
Allow the Holy Spirit speak to you as we go through them. And, please, this is not about condemnation. We have prayer ministry this morning precisely so we can receive grace from God.
The Jesus who says “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” also says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
So here we go:
Number 1; lukewarm people… attend church fairly regularly. (Isaiah 29.13)
2) Lukewarm people choose what is popular over what is right when forced to decide between them. (Luke 6.26)
3) Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they only want to be saved from the penalty of sin. (Romans 6.1-2)
4) Lukewarm people are moved by stories of people who do radical things for Christ, but they do not act. (James 1.22)
5) Lukewarm people rarely share their faith with their neighbours, colleagues and family. (Matthew 10.32-33)
6) Lukewarm people gauge their morality or “goodness” by comparing themselves to the secular world, not by comparing themselves to Jesus. (Luke 18.11-12)
7) Lukewarm people say they love Jesus and he is indeed part of their lives – but only a part. (Luke 9.57-62)
8) Lukewarm people will serve God and others but there are limits to how far they will go. (Luke 18.21-25)
9) Lukewarm people think much more about life on earth than about eternity in heaven. (Philippians 3.18-20)
10) Lukewarm people are thankful for their luxuries and comforts but rarely think about giving as much as possible to the poor. (Matthew 25.34-40)
11) Lukewarm people never live by faith. They structure their lives so that they never have to (Luke 12.16-21)
And finally number 12) Lukewarm people probably smoke and swear less than average but apart from that are not that different to your typical unbeliever. (Matthew 23.25-28)
“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 4th March 2012
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