The Second Sunday in Lent Another One Bites the Dust Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls to the crowd and to His disciples and says, “Take up your cross and follow Me. Be crucified with Me. Lose your life with Me. Die with Me.” Yet even before He calls upon everyone else to be crucified, Jesus first nails His friend Peter to the cross: “Get behind Me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but things of men.” Dear Christian friends, The Scriptures teach that we have three deadly enemies that confront us every day and mean to do us great harm. Our three enemies are the devil (Matthew 13:39, 1 Peter 5:8), the unbelieving world (John 15:8, 1 John 3:13), and our own inborn sinfulness (Romans 7:23, Galatians 5:17). Today’s Gospel is from Mark 8. In the chapters prior to today’s Gospel, • Jesus repeatedly showed His might and power over our first enemy, the devil. First, Jesus warded off the devil’s best attacks during the temptation in the wilderness (Mark 1:12-13). After that, Jesus deftly worked His way through the ranks of Satan’s army, casting out demons and breaking their power (Mark 1:21-26, 32-34, 39, 3:11-12, etc.). • Jesus also showed His might and power over our second enemy, the unbelieving world. The unbelieving world comes against Jesus by means of the scribes and the Pharisees, who kept the appearance of religion but wanted nothing to do with faith. Time and again, Jesus silenced the world, demonstrating the power of His Word in defiance of the world’s rejection and protest (Mark 2:1-1, 3:1-6, 22-30, etc.). In today’s Gospel, Jesus shows Himself to be the conqueror of our third terrible and perhaps most insurmountable enemy, our own sinful flesh: He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He said this plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Peter illustrates very well the terrible curse of our abiding sin. Peter shows that curse of our sin deeply distorts, not merely our words and actions, but even the very basic patterns of our human thinking. How desperately we need the Lord Jesus, every moment of every day! We need Jesus to be more than the beginning of our faith. We need Jesus to be more than the end or the goal of our faith. We need the Lord Jesus to be our constant defense, our ever-vigilant guardian, our faithful watchdog and our attentive bodyguard. Today’s Gospel shows how quickly we forget. It took Peter only a few moments to move from following Jesus to opposing Jesus. You or me: who among us has NOT likewise confessed the faith in one moment and doubted the mercies of the Lord in the next? Who loves or fears God enough? Who endures patiently enough the afflictions that God sends? Who does not often wonder… who does not often doubt… who does not often complain… who is not tempted? (AP IV.167) All of this is the third enemy. All of this is the sinful flesh that continues its lethal residence in you and in me: rebelling, defying, rejecting, denying, perverting, resenting, and protesting. “Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him,” but this is not a problem for Jesus. Jesus knows exactly what to do with the enemy of our inborn sin! Jesus takes up a hammer and some nails and the persistent enemy Peter’s sin gets crucified: “Get behind Me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but things of men.” What impact does our Lord’s “Get behind Me” have upon Peter? Our Lutheran forefathers called it “the mortification of the flesh” (AP IV.193). Stated somewhat more simply, Jesus put Peter to death. Think of the terror that must have seized Peter when he heard Jesus say, “Get behind Me! Begone! Get lost!” How Peter’s arms and legs must have weakened at being called Satan! What scandal upon his conscience when he heard the judgment of God: “You do not have in mind the things of God, but things of men.” Why would our gracious Lord Jesus speak in such a manner to someone whom He loved? Jesus crucified Peter with His Words precisely because He loved Peter. Jesus must crucify Peter with His Words because: • Peter’s third and final deadly enemy lives inside Peter. Peter’s enemy is his own sinful nature, which does “not have in mind the things of God” and never will. You likewise have an equally deadly enemy living inside you. I in my sinful nature likewise “do not have in mind the things of God.” I wonder what plan our Lord Jesus might have for us? • Peter’s natural way of thinking simply cannot comprehend and accept “the things of God.” Peter’s best and wisest natural way of thinking can only comprehend “the things of men.” But Peter’s natural way of thinking is what St. James calls “earthly, unspiritual, and demonic” (James 3:15). Peter’s natural way of thinking must be pushed out of the way, knocked to the ground and put to death (Colossians 3:5) so that the living, breathing Word of God may do its life-giving work in Peter’s mind (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:23). I wonder what Jesus would like to do with your natural way of thinking and with mine? • The Scriptures plainly teach that our Lord Jesus wants both you and me to have a part of His resurrection. That is why Jesus baptized us (Romans 6:3-4) and washed away our sins (Acts 22:16). But there is only one way to get to the resurrection. As Jesus began to teach in today’s Gospel, “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” In today’s Gospel, another enemy of your faith bites the dust. What happened to Peter was not merely for Peter’s sake. Your Lord Jesus wants you to know that, while He is defeating your enemies for you by the power of His cross, this warfare will have an impact upon you personally. After He crucified Peter with His Words in this Gospel, Jesus turned toward everyone else around Him and declared, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” • These Words mean that your Lord Jesus is serious about doing war against your sinful nature, just as He was serious about doing war against Peter’s sinful nature. • These Words mean that your Lord Jesus does not always feel the need to talk nice to you. When you listen to your flesh—that is, “You do not have in mind the things of God, but things of men”—your Lord’s powerful Words will go to work upon you, calling you to repentance, which is a change of heart and mind. We call that the preaching of the Law. Your Lord’s Words will gladly crucify you and mortify you and put you to death, all for the sake of giving you life through the Gospel. • These Words mean that your Lord Jesus will allow no enemy to stand between you and the rich forgiveness of sins that is now yours in Christ Jesus: not the devil, not the unbelieving world, and not even you. • These Words teach you to wait for something more. Read Mark’s Gospel through to the end! You will see that, where there is a crucifixion (Mark 15), there is also a resurrection (Mark 16). “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me,” says the Lord. Your cross moves up the road behind your Lord’s cross, but your cross will not end in death! Like the cross of Jesus before you, your cross will end with resurrection and with life.
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