If you're coming to church with us tomorrow, please look away now.
On Mark 8:34ff I might say:
Jesus doesn't exactly give us the hard sell!
This is not how to win friends and influence people!
This isn’t a promising recruitment campaign.
Sachi and Sachi would have advised Jesus to re-think his
publicity pitch.
Jesus’ invitation is to come and die.
Earnest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, is said to
have placed the following advert in the London newspapers:
MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY.SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL.HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS.
Jesus’s offer to his disciples seems even more
unpromising.
Yet, of course, our following of Jesus doesn’t depend on our success but on his.
The outcome of the adventure of following Jesus is
secure.
Jesus has won eternal life and everlasting glory for his
disciples.
That’s garunteed.
But those who want an easy, comfortable life would do
well to look elsewhere.
If we are unwilling to suffer with Christ, we need not
apply.
Honour and recognition for following Christ are unlikely
in this life.
In fact, Jesus told his disciples that they can expect
the world to hate them just as it hated him.
If they crucified Christ, Christians must be ready for
similar treatment.
Deitrich Bonhoffer, the Lutheran pastor who was hanged by
the Nazis for conspiring to assassinate Hitler once wrote:
“When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”
Come and die.
But that is the only way to real life, to eternal life.
v35: "whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."
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