“The Necessity of the Cross, for Jesus and for Us”
Matthew 16:21-28
8/31/08
Last week while I was on vacation in Colorado I got
to visit my brother and his family. He has three children - a
daughter who’s five and twins (a boy and a girl) who are
two. I love them very much, and I had lots of fun going places
with them and playing with them. But once in a while they would
misbehave. My nephew would get cranky if either of his sisters
played with any of his toys. Or his twin sister would get upset
if she didn’t get what she wanted. Sometimes they just
threw temper tantrums for no apparent reason at all. It was at
those times that their parents would threaten them with what they
called the “naughty chair.” They would tell the
children to stop crying and misbehaving or else they would have to go
sit on the naughty chair. “Do you want to go sit on the
naughty chair?” they’d ask. And most of the time this
worked; threatened with this punishment, the children calmed down and
got back to the business of playing. But sometimes they got the
punishment. They would have to go sit on the naughty chair (a
small, yellow chair which stood in an isolated part of the house), and
they’d have to remain seated on this chair until they stopped
crying.
But the naughty chair was only one sort of
punishment for misbehavior. There were also spankings if the
infraction was bad enough. Other times dessert was withheld or
bedtime was moved up. Those of you who are parents or now have
grandchildren can understand the necessity of punishing children in
some way when they disobey and misbehave. Sometimes the
punishment may be light; sometimes it needs to be more severe.
But most of us would agree that there are times when punishment is
called for, whatever that punishment may be. Even if you are
against the death penalty in the cases of those who are convicted of
murder you would at least see the need for such criminals to go to
prison.
In Jesus’ day the death penalty that the
Romans inflicted upon those criminals who were non-citizens was
crucifixion. Some might argue that such a punishment was
barbaric, since it was an extremely tortuous way to die. Still,
even the one thief who was crucified with Jesus acknowledged that he
deserved to be punished in such a way, but that Jesus did not.
And that’s what brings us to Jesus’
remarks today, where He tells His disciples that He must go to
Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests and
scribes, be killed, and on the third day be raised. No wonder
this sounded so strange to Peter. Why would Jesus have to go to
the cross? What had He done that deserved such a
punishment? Even Pontius Pilate, when the Jews demanded that
Jesus be crucified, asked, “Why? What evil has He
done?” From the Scriptures we know that Jesus is God in the
flesh. We know that He perfectly kept all of God’s
commandments, living in such a way that everything He said and did gave
glory to God the Father. Even with regards to the Roman
government, Jesus was the model citizen. He wasn’t trying
to overthrow Caesar. He Himself said His kingdom is not of this
world. He even paid taxes when they were required. At one
point all were speaking well of Him, praising God on account of His
works. Why should He have to go to the cross?
It’s not very often that we hear of God having
to do anything. What does God have to do? Who can tell God
He has to do something and then make Him do it? The only one who
can put a “have to” on God is God Himself. Here Jesus
says that He must suffer, die, and be raised. But He must do
these things, because His Father laid this “must do” upon
Him at His Baptism. It was there that Jesus was anointed with the
Spirit to be the Suffering Servant of the LORD spoken of in the book of
Isaiah. As the LORD’s Suffering Servant Jesus would have to
go to the cross. But He would go not in order to be punished for
any sins of His, but for your sins and my sins. Jesus had to go
to the cross, because God requires sins to be punished, and the
punishment for sins is death - both physical and eternal. Since
God doesn’t want to pour that punishment out on you, He sent His
Son to take the punishment you deserve in your place. Jesus went
to the cross for you, so that God might pour out His mercy upon you
instead of His wrath.
These things are what Jesus refers to as “the
things of God.” Concerning such things St. Paul exclaims,
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of
God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His
ways!” God’s ways are not our ways. That our
petty little sins should deserve God’s temporal and eternal
punishment is foolishness enough to our fallen, sinful reason.
But that Jesus should be sent to suffer and die in our place is even
more foolish. It doesn’t compute with what Jesus refers to
as “the things of man.” According to man’s way
of thinking certain sins are worse than others, making some people
worse sinners than others. I recently saw a bumper sticker that
read, “If Jesus died on the cross for my sins, it seems that He
overreacted.” Now, we may be appalled at such a statement,
but it merely puts into words what’s already written in our
hearts. By nature we, too, believe that we are not big enough
sinners to warrant the death penalty. Even Peter thought Jesus
was overreacting a bit and didn’t see himself a big enough sinner
to justify Jesus going to the cross for him. By nature we sinners
believe that we are good enough to get into heaven; we don’t
deserve the cross.
But it’s not about what we believe about
ourselves that matters. It’s what God says about us, and
that is that we are complete and utterly sinful before Him. Even
if we commit just one small sin in our eyes, before God it’s
enormous, because it’s against Him. Any sin against God is
a God-sized sin. And with a God-sized sin you need a God-sized
solution. And that solution is the God-Man’s suffering,
death, and resurrection. And this, too, goes against man’s
way of thinking, because man’s way is that a person must pay for
his own sins. I know of no child who would be willing to sit in
the “naughty chair” for his/her sibling, taking the
punishment in his/her place. More often than not children rejoice
in informing their parents of their brother or sister’s bad
behavior so that they can see them get punished. But that’s
not God’s way. Jesus willingly went to the cross for you at
the Father’s command, in order to take the punishment your sins
deserve upon Himself instead of letting it fall upon you. And
with His suffering and death, God’s wrath has been completely
satisfied. The punishment for your sins has been completely paid,
so that there’s none left for you.
So why, then, does Jesus start talking about the
necessity of denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following
Him? Why do we need to take up the cross when Jesus already took
it up for us? Hasn’t the punishment for our sins been
completely taken care of by Jesus, or is there more punishment that we
need to suffer ourselves? If taking up our cross means that we
must suffer for our sins, that means that Christ’s suffering and
death was insufficient. Something must be added to it, namely,
our own suffering and death. But this takes away from the glory
of Christ. If by some miracle my nephew took his sister’s
punishment by sitting on the naughty chair in her place but then
afterwards his mother made her sit on the naughty chair as well, my
nephew’s suffering would be for nothing. That’s the
way it would be with Jesus, too, if God still required you to suffer
the punishment for your sins after Jesus suffered it in your place.
The only way to understand what Jesus is saying here
is to distinguish between His cross and your cross. His cross was
the all-sufficient punishment for your sins. His suffering and
death alone has appeased God’s wrath and worked peace for you
before God. By faith in His sacrifice alone you are declared
righteous by God and forgiven all your sins. For the sake of
Christ’s cross alone you live under God’s mercy and have
the promise of eternal life now as well as the resurrection of your
body and the life of the world to come. Your cross gets you none
of this. Your cross is neither a punishment for your sins nor
does your suffering it get you into heaven. Your cross is a gift
to you from Jesus, given to you at your Baptism, in order to bring
death to your sinful nature and to keep sin in check. In fact,
what Jesus refers to as denying yourself, taking up your cross, and
following Him is nothing more than what’s been given you to do as
the Holy Spirit has His way with you through Holy Baptism. As
Luther explains in the Small Catechism, “[Baptism] indicates that
the Old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance
[that’s denying yourself], be drowned and die with all sins and
evil lusts [that’s taking up your cross]; and, again, a new man
should daily come forth and arise, who will live before God in
righteousness and purity forever [that’s following
Jesus].” Although part of your cross might be suffering the
temporal consequences of your actions (sitting on the naughty chair
when you throw a temper tantrum), it is the daily struggle you will
face as you seek to hear God’s Word, believe it, and do it, while
keeping your eyes on Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead for your
salvation. For His sake you will not suffer the punishment of
hell, but will live and reign with Him for all eternity in heaven.
By nature we shrink from taking up the cross.
It’s not in us to deny ourselves; like my little nephew, we think
the world revolves around us. Neither is it in us to bear the
cross; like children we don’t want discipline; we want our
way. Nor is it in us to follow Jesus. Where is He
going? To the cross. Like Peter, we neither want Jesus to
go there nor do we want to go there. We’d gladly follow
Jesus if He were going the way of glory. But He is going the way
of glory; it’s just that the cross must come first. Jesus
would die, but then He would be raised from the dead and ascend into
heaven to the right hand of God the Father Almighty. For you to
follow Jesus means not only that you go with Him to the cross, but that
you also go with Him to the resurrection and then to the Father in
glory. Even now the Apostle Paul says that we are seated with Him
in the heavenly realms. And so we can give thanks to God for the
gift of the cross. With God’s help we can rejoice in
denying ourselves, picking up our cross, and following Jesus. It
may mean suffering in this life, but it will be followed by eternal
life in glory. On the other hand, those who reject the cross
might live a life of ease in this world, only to suffer for eternity
afterwards.
Why the cross, then? Why Jesus’
cross? Because sins had to be punished and someone had to be
punished for them. We deserved Jesus’ cross. We
deserve both God’s temporal and eternal punishment, but He sent
His Son, our Brother, to take it for us. And now there’s no
punishment left for us. Why our cross, then? So that our
sinful nature might be put to death and our sins kept in check.
And when we do sin, as children do daily, our heavenly Father forgives
us for the sake of our Savior who paid the penalty for us, not so that
we might sin all the more, but that we might continue to deny
ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him who purchased us with His
blood. Amen.