3/9/58

Scripture: Mark 10: 29-45

Text: Mark 10: 32; “And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and they were amazed; and as they followed they were afraid.”

In a sense, these words are an announcement of the coming passion of our Lord. The picture is etched in bold lines: (1) the road leading toward Jerusalem; (2) Jesus going on ahead; (3) the disciples following in amazement and fear. It is a great moment in history. And it throws a strong light on the whole Christian enterprise, now just as surely as then.

It portrays a strong Jesus, vastly different from the idea of some artists who have overdone the soft, gentle, meek, mild notion of him in their paintings or writings. The courage of Jesus is most impressive, as he faces what he knows will happen in Jerusalem, and yet goes ahead toward it. The picture in this Bible verse also portrays well the task of the disciples of today and tomorrow, as in the yesterdays, to follow where Jesus leads into conflict and sacrifice and toward death.

For Jesus, going up to Jerusalem this time was his ultimate witness to his truth; the ultimate demonstration of his love, in the laying down of his life. It is no wonder that the disciples were amazed and frightened over a course that led to such obvious danger. Many of us would shrink from it. For “Jerusalem” is not necessarily a spot on some map for us, so much as it is the point of danger in our time that needs sincere encounter and open witness and sacrifice.

Going to Jerusalem means going from comparative safety to danger; from little cost to tremendous cost. Many never undertake the journey. They stay safely and quietly in Galilee, touring pleasant places, keeping away from dangerous questions, avoiding loss or pain. They avoid concern over the great social injustices where people whom God loves, and for whom Christ died, are oppressed by people and policies. “There’s no use going to extremes -- let’s not go to Jerusalem.”

But Jesus went to the extreme. He resolutely crossed the border out of his Galilee toward his Jerusalem. It tests the reality of our profession of faith in him to follow him, even though we be amazed and fearful and unable to see the power and fullness of life that comes from such following.

There is rich suggestion in the simple comment that Jesus walked ahead of his disciples on the road. That is where Jesus always is --- ahead. Ahead of the customs of each age, ahead of our dulled consciences, ahead of all blindness to human and spiritual needs and values.

The book of Hebrews [12:2] speaks of Jesus as “the pioneer -- of our faith.” That expresses it constantly. He has been and he is, the divine leader, trail-breaker, the adventurer, going ahead into the new and not-always-safe territories of human life and achievement. He goes ahead into the tangled areas of slavery and exploitation, of distortion and wrong, with a laggard company of us disciples trudging along far behind him.

There have been times when we have quit trudging and have just settled down where we were, content to let alone some murderous wrongs done even in the name of Christ, with pride of race, strife of class and heat of war unprotested. Jesus goes on ahead of our conventional morality, ahead of the mediocrity which we substitute for a Christian maximum. Jane Adams used to say: “Someday we will stop talking of the right of a child to food, and will talk of the right of a child to happiness.” Jesus pioneers on in the darkness and the twilight as well as in the glare of mid-day. He pioneers out in the wilderness of greed and of power competition and ruthlessness and chicanery.

His pioneering places two compulsions upon us. One is not to try to keep him back, as though our own miserably inadequate goals represented his purposes and goals. That would be an unforgivable violence. Better far for us to say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have not followed, God forgive us! But at least we see him going on ahead.” We can at least allow him to remain a rebuke and an inspiration to us, and not try to identify our pitiable achievement with his desire. Second, we can honestly and earnestly try to close the gap between him and us. We can shorten the distance with our own longer strides. We need not lag so far behind!

Now let us think further of this picture of the strong Jesus striding forward, his face set steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. (1) It is the same Jesus who has compared himself to a “good shepherd” -- not a weak and meek and mild shepherd, but one who defends his sheep from the wild beasts; who goes resolutely out to find one that is lost; who knows them by name and by inclinations. (2) It is the same strong Jesus who, when Judas will enter the garden with soldiers seeking him in Gethsemane will step forward without hesitation asking, “Whom seek ye?” --- (3) The same Jesus who is to stand his ground without yielding as Pilate’s prosecution probes for cause to do away with him, and answering, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (4) It is the Jesus who refused to stop short of death until his mission was fulfilled.

There is so much of Jesus’ nature and disposition suggested in the text: “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and they were amazed; and as they followed they were afraid.” Why should the disciples have been amazed? They had known Jesus these several years, and they should have understood that he would not dodge an issue nor shrink from God’s claim upon him. Tears and pain were no deterrent to him.

But notice what had been going on just before this moment when Jesus set his course to Jerusalem. Some of his disciples had been wrangling among themselves; arguing over who had given up the most to follow Jesus; following up with the implication that they were therefore deserving of special rewards. They were fussing over a question as to what they were going to get out of this, while the captain of their Salvation was setting his face toward Jerusalem and certain death.

Perhaps their amazement came partly from their recognition of God’s standards in the figure of the one who strode on ahead of them, ready to dare and defy, to do and to die in the cause of truth.

An ancient Druid king asked a Celtic monk, “What difference will it make if I become Christ’s man?” And the monk replied, “If you become Christ’s man you will behold wonder upon wonder, and every wonder true.” Some of the Christian’s wonders are enough to put him in fearful, hopeful awe!

Let us ask, a little further, why the disciples should be afraid? Or perhaps we might ask what kind of fear was upsetting them now? They were afraid lest this whole, hopeful enterprise, upon which they had set themselves so willingly with Jesus, would suddenly let them down, and come to naught. It had been a thrilling experience to accompany him thus far, marveling at his wisdom and power and spirit. It seemed to them dreadful to put all of these cherished values in jeopardy.

Do you remember what a clamor of appeal there was, some 20 or 25 years ago, for Charles A. Lindbergh to stop flying to distant places over unaccustomed routes. People had made quite an idol of the man whose first non-stop flight from New York to Paris catapulted him to world-wide fame. And they wanted no risk of disaster to Lindbergh. It was not Lindbergh’s wishes they considered, but the comfort of their own image of him.

The fear of the disciples may have been something like this. They found themselves facing what was beyond, and outside of, themselves, which they could not understand.

Now, as we prepare to celebrate this Lenten season, we find ourselves again tracing the steps of Jesus as he went up to Jerusalem. Some who follow will be amazed, others, venturing forward with him, will be afraid. But every reverent, sober-thinking, understanding Christina will follow him with great respect, for reasons like these:

(1) First of all, where Christ’s mission is concerned, the initiative is always his own. Jesus was not being “maneuvered into a delicate position.” He was walking straight toward the area of trouble, because he wanted to, and because he was sure God wanted him to.

A Scotch writer tells of the bravest young man he ever met. The fellow was in his early thirties and came to the pastor of the kirk to inquire if he could become a church member. During the interview it came out that he was victim to a rare disease that was incurable and that would give him no more than two more years of life. Now his concern was that, in the short time remaining, he should be able to help other folk. He wanted he said, “to repay the world for kindness it has shown to me.”

After the young man died, a friend said of him: “He passed through these years with the most radiant happiness that I have ever seen.” He had awaited death with a courage amazing to all who knew him. But what shall we say of a young man who went out looking for death at the hands of his sworn enemies in Jerusalem? There was nothing to compel him to go, except his own decision. He was not going because he was disillusioned, or because he was a fatalist, or because he wished to appear a magnificent martyr’s figure in the sight of men.

He went because, in the affairs and schemes of men, the initiative must be his, and his alone. And not only this; but he felt that the struggle must be carried to Jerusalem -- right to the heart of the nation -- and be settled there.

The matters to be settled were not just a few domestic wrangles among a few fishermen and country artisans. Jesus was about to throw his whole weight in where great issues were at stake; government and human relationships, war and peace, justice and injustice, greed and mercy, life and death. Into all these things he comes today. And you and I can neither hold him back nor force him out.

Peter tried it. He pointed out that it was sheer madness for Jesus to go to Jerusalem. These things, such as suffering and death were not for the Master, surely! And Jesus was really severe with Peter. “Get thee behind me, Satan. Your outlook is not God’s, but man’s,” he said. [Matthew 16 21-23].

Jesus always breaks through the nice restraints and gentle persuasions that we people try to put around him. He will not be limited by our carefully-chosen categories, our agreed-upon creeds. He always amazes us by his own determination to go to Jerusalem where he throws down a challenge to the conscience of the whole world. “No man taketh my life from me,” he said; “I lay it down of myself.” [John 10: 18]. The initiative was his alone, and still is! He alone, gives himself for you and for me.

(2) Further, where Christ’s mission is concerned, the goal is always his own. How pathetic is the effort of those who try to set up Jesus’ goals for him! They do not intend to do so, but in most discussions of the nature of Christianity they unconsciously try to tell Jesus what his job was and is. There are those who are preoccupied with “peace of mind,” some of whom appear to think that Christianity is a kind of prescription to assure them tranquillity, or to provide them with a comforting enough emotional neutrality so that they can relax. That isn’t all of it, nor enough of it. For Jesus said, “I am not come to bring peace, but a sword.” [Matthew 10: 34]. True peace of mind is not just comfort. It is more like integrity in the midst of stress and storm!

There are also those “idealists” who believe that Jesus has given us a set of ideals to live up to. True, but only part of the truth. There never was a time when ideals were so high as in this age of history. Yet “humanity staggers with drunken incompetence from one calamity to the next.”

And there are those who are always talking about “problems” and who continually assure themselves, and all, that Jesus “is the solution to all your problems” as if he were a sort of master mechanic to be called in whenever the motor begins to miss.

Jesus’ goal was none of these. If it were not more than these, it would hardly have been worth his while to have come at all.

“He died that we might be forgiven,

He died to make us good.”

His goal was a rescuing action reaching down to the point of man’s deepest need.

And what is your deepest need, and mine? A modern theologian, Emil Brunner, puts it clearly in these words: “We cannot live without God. But also we cannot live with God so long as our sin is not removed.” Jesus’ single aim was to do something about this desperate need, because we can not do enough about it ourselves.

A grand old Scotsman told a friend how he had come across an old bundle of letters written to him earlier by his own mother. He realized, as he re-read the letters, that his mother had written many years before of her own hopes for her son; the goal she hoped he would reach. What grand hopes they were!

Jesus’ goal was his own -- and it was the highest and holiest of goals, and best for you and me. Tennyson speaks of lives good and bad, all “like coins, some true, some light, but everyone of you stamped with the image of the King.”

Jesus’ goal was his own. It is fulfilled only when you and I, and all the human race, are stamped with the image of the King of Kings.

(3) And thirdly, where Christ’s mission is concerned, the method is always his own.

At the outset of his ministry, he went to his cousin, John the Baptist, to be baptized. And it was so. He was baptized by John. [Mark 1: 9]. Then he chose, of himself, to go into the wilderness for 40 days to agonize in prayer over how his mission was to be accomplished. The evil one had his own ideas. (a) Be a wonder-worker and turn stones to bread. (b) Be a magician and throw yourself dramatically from the top of the temple without being hurt. (c) Just acknowledge me and you can have a kingdom as far as you can see! People will storm their way to you! He rejected all of these as unworthy. [Matthew 4: 1-11].

But his disciples were always blundering into the same methods. “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” someone asks. [Luke 9: 51-54]. In Gethsemane, Peter drew a sword and in one slash cut off the ear of a man in the party that was arresting Jesus. He received only a stinging rebuke, as the Master said, “They that draw the sword shall perish by the sword.” [Matthew 26: 51-52].

Then, after his resurrection, on the road to Emmaus, two bewildered followers intimated that they had thought Jesus’ method would be to overthrow the present government and set up his own kingdom. Remember how strongly he worded his comment? “You foolish ones! Ought not Christ to have suffered?” [Luke 24: 13-26].

His goal was to save and redeem mankind from sin and to gather all into his kingdom of love and good will and peace. And, for that, his method was to be his own.

He opened the road to peace and salvation with his life. His arms being stretched upon a cross are, in the deepest spiritual sense, stretched out to include every living soul who will turn to him. That is his method. And no one has yet discovered any other that will save us from our sins and set us up in strength to do the blessed will of God.

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Prayer: Strong Son of God, by thine own purpose .. thine own initiative, goal and method, by thy matchless sacrifice, catch us up in thy strength and make us whole. Amen.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, March 9, 1958

Wisconsin Rapids, February 24, 1963