First Reading: Jeremiah 26:8-15
8When Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! 9Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. 10When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. 11Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.” 12Then Jeremiah spoke to all the officials and all the people, saying, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. 13Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will relent of the disaster that he has pronounced against you. 14But as for me, behold, I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you. 15Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and its inhabitants, for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.”
Psalm 4
1Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause; you set me free when I am hard-pressed; have mercy on me and hear my prayer. 2“You mortals, how long will you dishonor my glory;* how long will you worship dumb idols and run after false gods?” 3Know that the Lord does wonders for the faithful; when I call upon the Lord, he will hear me. 4Tremble, then, and do not sin; speak to your heart in silence upon your bed. 5Offer the appointed sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. 6Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!” Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord. 7You have put gladness in my heart, more than when grain and wine and oil increase. 8I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Second Reading: Philippians 3:17 – 4:1
17Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
1Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
Gospel: Luke 13:31-35
31At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. 33Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ 34O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
The Cross, a Burden or Blessing
Does a fast-food nation get the church it deserves, or the one that it demands? A fast-food church is one where the attendee gets it fast, their way, and at their time and convenience. Or do we, as God’s people, give our nation and community what it really needs, a church that points people to the Way, the Truth and the Life? Remember what Jesus told the disciples in John 4:24, “God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Sadly, I think the former is more often the case. The season of Lent is a time for us to reflect, to examine ourselves, and ask the tough questions.
One of the things that seems to go hand in hand with Lent, is the “giving up” of something. This “giving up” usually involves things that really aren’t good for us anyway. In a way, some people make Lent a time of dieting, and their motivation is that it only lasts 40 Days. And secularly speaking, maybe they’re onto something! Maybe one of you industrious, Tech savvy, people here today can take to social media and capitalize on this new idea, the Lenten diet.
However, for the wise and discerning Christian, we know that Lent isn’t about giving up things, unless those things are bad habits, unhealthy practices, and sinful behavior, rather Lent is a time of reflection, penance, and repentance in its truest form. It’s about prayer, fasting, and giving. Lent is a season of change, of winnowing down, of reflection on our relationship with Jesus, and of our Christian Walk.
In today’s epistle lesson, St. Paul reminds his readers that following Jesus is about living life as an advocate, as a positive force, not as an enemy of the cross. Lent is about embracing the message and mission of the cross. The season of Lent isn’t just a time of giving up; it’s equally a time of cleaning out, and for “taking on” new responsibilities and avenues. One could see Lent as the time for a “Spring cleaning” of the spiritual life. This is what St. Paul is encouraging the community of Philippi to do, to “take on” those who are encouraging others to seek the momentary joys of a “here and now” lifestyle. You know, the eat, drink, and be merry crowd.
Paul was chastising those within the Philippian Christian community who reveled in a life that celebrates the physical, the momentary, and all those transient pleasures, that would end this side of eternity, and to set these evils aside. Then, like today, it wasn’t just in Gold’s Gym or Planet Fitness where you found people whose body had gone to their head. It was at this church at Philippi as well.
In contrast, Paul encouraged the Philippian Christians to follow Paul’s own example, and to be inspired by all those within their own fellowship who embodied in their lives a commitment to Christ and His cross. It’s a commitment that drives them to live according to some very “different” values, one that encouraged them to embrace and glorify that most ugly and appalling of emblems — the cross. Paul’s message is an affirmation of the cross.
The Apostle Paul is forwarding that the cross isn’t just something to be consented to, it’s something to be celebrated. The cross is not a burden. The cross is not a weight. It’s the passport to an entirely different kingdom — a kingdom and life of glory. Over the centuries we’ve developed this myopic vision of “bearing the cross.” It’s a dismal image. We envision some huge burden, smashed down upon our shoulders, that we’re supposed to willingly solider on and slog about for the rest of our lives. But this is a misrepresentation of what Paul is teaching here.
Toward the end of the 17th century, Thomas Shephard, building on the work of John Mason, completed the hymn called Must Jesus bear the cross alone. In this thought-filled hymn, John Mason, was reflecting on the passage found in Matthew 27:32 where Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry Jesus’ cross on the way to Golgotha. The first two verses are, Must Jesus bear the cross alone, And all the world go free? No, there’s a cross for everyone, And there’s a cross for me. How happy are the saints above, Who once went sorr’wing here! But now they taste unmingled love, And joy without a tear. The song certainly causes one to reflect, and it helps me point out some things we need to consider.
Actually, it helps me in two ways: the first is found in the first verse: the cross that Jesus bore, is a cross that only He could bear. We cannot bear His cross. “Must Jesus bear the cross alone?” Yes, only the Son of God could bear the cross that sets us free. And that cross has been born and cannot be carried again. Jesus calls for each of us to bear a cross, but it’s not the cross of Christ. There’s only one cross of Calvary.
Complementary to this hymn, is the song, At Calvary, written about the same time by William Newell: the Refrain states, “Mercy there was great, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty, At Calvary.” The cross Jesus bore was one He bore alone, it was a cross that freed us, reconciled us to the Father, and one that doesn’t bind us to a life of misery, but to a life of grateful servitude.
The second thing the hymn by Thomas Shephard points out is found in the second verse: Christ didn’t carry the cross to rebirth humanity as hunchbacks. Christ didn’t die on the cross so we could lead miserable, sorrow-filled lives. Yes, Jesus was forced to carry His own crucifixion cross to Golgotha, but He didn’t accept that weight as a gravitational down-pull upon all of His earthly life. The last “Via Dolorosa” mile, (or the Way of Suffering), Jesus walked, didn’t negate all the Via Pax (or the Way of Peace), or the Via Gaudium (the Way of Joy) missionary miles He walked during His life on earth. The peace and joy we have from Jesus’ life, passion, and death are a gift because of His willingness to walk the way of suffering.
In a hymn that you and I are more familiar with, Beneath the cross of Jesus, written in the mid 1800’s by Elizabeth Clephane, verse one states, Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand, the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land; a home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way, from the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day. The cross Christ bore upon His back wasn’t a burden, it was an instrument that rolled away burdens.
The cross of Christ was the perfect means to complete God’s plan of salvation. It was the way and means to transform life on earth for all people, for all eternity. The cross was Jesus’ perfect instrument to bring down the dividing walls of sin that separate us from God. Yes, for the Romans and the Religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the cross was an instrument of humiliation, torture, and death. But for God, the cross Jesus gladly bore was a cross of forgiveness, reconciliation, and life for all who confess and believe.
Lent is a time to look to the cross, but we need not envision it only as a burden, as an instrument of torture. The cross, when born by people of faith, is an instrument to transform ourselves and heal this world. Life is best lived under the weight of the cross, but a cross that doesn’t drag us down, but lifts us up. Embracing the cross of Christ does not make us hunchbacks — it enables us to stand straight and be wholly human.
Evangelist E. Stanley Jones once observed that Christians are called not to bear Christ’s cross upon their own backs, but to use Christ’s cross to accomplish those things one could not do otherwise. The cross you and I are called to carry isn’t a crushing, back-breaking burden; instead, it’s best thought of as a yoke — a beam with a cross-bar that lies upon our shoulders and makes it possible for us to bear far more than we ever thought possible because Jesus is the lead puller. Interestingly, the yokes of the first century looked like a cross, which makes Christ’s promise that “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30) all the more revealing.
There’s something else I’d like for you to consider; have you ever noticed that a small cross looks like a sword? The cross can also function as a sword — a sword of the Spirit that protects and defends when we’re confronted with evil, with temptation, with despair, with anxiety, or with anger. Used as a sword, the cross isn’t an offensive weapon, rather it can defend the heart and soul when the “enemies of the cross” go on the attack.
If we envision carrying the cross of Christ not as a burden, but as a blessing and an instrument for helping us live and love God and neighbor throughout this life, then embracing ourselves as “cross-bearers for Christ,” takes on a very different tone. No longer is “cross-bearing” something depressingly grey and ghastly. Instead “cross-bearing” becomes a joyous, energized invitation, a way in which we fulfill our call as disciples of Jesus, going out into the mission fields of this world.
Reflecting further on the “foolishness of the cross” (1 Corinthians 1:18) as St. Paul describes it, Christian faithfulness confounds the “wisdom of the world” (1 Corinthians 1:19) in so many ways. Contrary to what the world teaches, Jesus entreats us to love our enemy. That the first shall be last and the last shall be first. That humility beats hubris, that servanthood trumps power and prestige. Again, in our reading from Philippians, Paul is reminding his audience that “imitation” is a good thing.
While the world teaches that anything that is an “imitation” is second-class, a knock-off of little value, that “imitation” is a mark of inferiority, the Apostle Paul regards “imitation” as the ultimate sign of genuine faithfulness. Paul urges believers to imitate Christ and to imitate the Christ-like behavior they see exhibited by others in the Christian community.
While the world cringes at being labeled or called an “imitator,” for Paul, it’s a lifelong goal. Consider this: the world says imitation is shallow flattery, the body of Christ says imitation is sincere faith. Additionally, we also need to consider that imitation isn’t just for the individual, it’s also for the Christian community. Paul opens this week’s text by calling on the whole community of Philippian Christians to be “fellow imitators of me” and of all those in the community who “live according to the example you have in us.” Paul himself is an example only because he too is an imitator: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). We also need to notice that there’s a word of caution here.
Paul’s positive directive has a negative alternative. There are others, with apparent influence and closeness to the Philippian faith community, who were walking a decidedly different path. There were those who were nothing less than “enemies of the cross of Christ.” This is a serious accusation and a dangerous situation. When Paul speaks of “the cross”, he is alluding to both the actual crucifixion of Jesus and to the divine redemption that the cross represents. Those who are “enemies of the cross” are those who reject Jesus as God’s ultimate pathway for rescuing humanity from the grip of sin and death.
These “enemies” are those whose “god is the belly.” This “belly” (“koilia”) is a reference to a fixation upon the bodily, earthly life — the “stomach,” the daily demands of hunger, thirst, the physical needs, and desires of the body. Yet “belly” can also be a reference to the “womb,” or the “naval,” those bodily reference points form the beginning of the self. Self-absorption, “naval gazing,” as well as a simplistic fixation upon bodily comforts, is the “god” Paul preaches against as the “enemy.” Someone has, in the past few days, said the biggest idol in America is the self. I believe this to be true. We are a nation of self-focused people. This is what Paul was cautioning against.
Paul weeps over those who are “enemies of the cross,” not only because they’re wrong-headed, but also because they “glory” in their failed and faulty convictions. They celebrate attitudes and indulgences that should bring them “shame.” Paul sees that this gross glorification is caused by a fixation upon “earthly things.” In contrast to the attitude of the “enemy”, is the new reality lived by those who embrace the cross, who follow Christ and live a life of “imitation.” Rather than an earthly fixation, the faithful find that their “citizenship is in heaven” (v.20).
Furthermore, St. Paul’s declaration in these final verses does encapsulate several essential Christian convictions. First, there is the assertion that the physical, earthly world isn’t the be-all/end-all of human existence. Instead, we look forward to a different venue, a “citizenship in heaven” that lays claim to people of faith. Those who enjoy the privileges of that residence live in a state of expectation — anticipating a Savior, specifically “the Lord Jesus Christ.” This “citizenship” was a distinctly separate community that was allowed to operate under its own laws, even though the member of the community lived under the watchful eye of another governing authority. Paul asserts that Christians living amidst the authorities of both Rome and the Temple, Gentiles, and the Jews, live as people who were “in the world, but not of this world.”
Finally, Paul reveals that the outcome of this life as an imitator, as a friend, not an enemy, of the cross, bears eschatological fruit. The base and basic human body, the body of our humiliation,” will be “transformed” into “the body of His glory.” The gift and power of Christ is one of transformation. The “cross of Christ” — sacrifice, death, and resurrection — represents the new option that is now available to humanity — the option of “transformation” or “change” from an earth-bound body to “the body of His glory.” This is the greatest “imitation of Christ” in which faithful followers are invited to participate. Even as Jesus exchanged His earthly body that suffered and died for the world, so are the faithful invited to embrace the transformation of our bodies, from a “body of humiliation” to a “body of glory.”
This body of glory, this promise of eternal life with Him, is the ultimate “prize” Jesus offers. This is the reason we “imitate” Jesus. The cross we bear, His call on our lives to faithful discipleship, in the name of Christ, ultimately ends in the transformation, the glorification, of human existence, of a “body” that is far more than a “belly,” of a “body” that has heavenly citizenship. The cross Jesus calls us to take up, is the joy and hope of all who live as “imitators of Christ.”
Amen