In these Wednesday services, we've been talking about the things we could give up for Lent. We've talked about giving up control of our lives, giving up expectations about what our lives should be, giving up our feelings of superiority, and giving up our enemies by loving them.
None of these things is easy to do. In fact, they're all pretty hard to do. They make us to go against what society says we're supposed to do. Not only that, a lot of times they make us go against what we, ourselves, want to do. They make us go against what we might call human nature.
There's a reason for that. What we call human nature involves sin. That's not all it involves, of course. We're made in the image of God, so our human nature includes the ability to care, the ability to love, the ability to create, the ability to forgive. Human nature includes a lot of good things. But human nature also includes a lot of bad things. Those are the things we've been talking about trying to give up.
Tonight, we talk about what might be the hardest thing of all to give up. We're going to talk about going all the way. We're going to talk about giving up our lives.
That's really hard. I don't know about you, but I like my life. I'm very happy with it. In fact, right now, at age fifty-four, I'm probably as happy as I've ever been. My life is going really well. I get to do a lot of fun and enjoyable and rewarding things. I've got a great wife to do them with. I've got great people in this parish and in all three towns of this parish to do them with, too. If I could somehow call a time-out and just keep my life the way it is right now, I'd do that.
Because I like my life so much, it's really hard for me to imagine giving it up. If I claim to be a follower of Jesus, though, I need to be able to do it if that's what God wants me to do.
Could I do it? I don't know. I'd like to think so. I'd like to be able to say I'd be willing to give up my life for God. But I don't know. I don't think it's possible to know unless and until we're in the situation. And I don't really ever want to be in that situation.
Now, some of you may be thinking, well, there's another way to interpret this. We can look at it that Jesus is just asking us to give up doing the things we want to do and instead live the way he told us to live. We're giving up our selfish, sinful way of life and finding new life through Jesus Christ.
I don't really think that works, though. I mean, yes, Jesus does ask us to give up our selfish, sinful way of life. But that's not what he's talking about here. If we look at the context of this, Jesus is talking about literally being willing to give up our life. And that's hard to do. It's hard, really, to even think about.
It was hard for Peter to think about. When Jesus started talking this way, Peter told him not to do it. And Jesus got upset with Peter. He told Peter, “you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
And that's why the idea of giving up our lives is so hard. Because we have in mind human concerns rather than the concerns of God.
Now, that's understandable. After all, we are human. It's pretty natural that we'd have human concerns in our mind.
And that's not all bad. I mean, there were times when Jesus had human concerns in mind. If Jesus thought human concerns were unimportant, he would not have healed all those people. He would not have fed all those people. Jesus does not say we should never have human concerns in mind.
The thing is, though, that even though human concerns can be and are important, they are not as important as the concerns of God. So, as Christians, we need to be willing to go beyond our human concerns and focus on the concerns of God.
So, when it gets right down to it, how do we live that way? What does that mean for our lives? It sounds good to say we're going to go beyond our human concerns and focus on the concerns of God, but when we say that, what are we actually saying?
It seems to me that this is where all the other things we've talked about on these Wednesday nights have been leading. If we give up all those other things, if we truly give them up, this is where we'll end up. And I think, deep down, even though we did not talk about this before, we know that. And that's why giving up all those other things is so hard.
If we truly give up control of our lives and turn that control over to God, we will go wherever God wants us to go and do whatever God wants us to do, no matter what the consequences are. If we truly give up our expectations of what our lives should be, we will accept whatever God does with our lives, no matter what it is. If we give up our feelings of superiority to others, we will accept that everyone else is just as important to God as we are, and that we need to consider other people, and their wants, and their needs, and their desires, as just as important as ours. And if we give up our enemies, if we show love to them the way Jesus told us to, we will be living like Jesus lived and doing what Jesus did.
That's where it leads. Jesus says if you want to follow me, you need to follow me all the way. I'm headed to the cross, so if you're following me that's where you'd better be ready to go.
It's hard. It was hard for the disciples. In fact, in the moment, they were not able to do it. When Jesus was arrested, they all abandoned him. Many of you know the story of Peter, who after Jesus was arrested denied that he'd ever been with Jesus or knew him at all. He not only denied it once, he denied it three times. That makes Peter look bad, but at least Peter stayed around. At least he was still in the area. We don't even hear anything about what the other disciples did after Jesus was arrested. The impression is that they were nowhere to be found. They vanished.
When the disciples started following Jesus, I doubt that they really knew where he was going to lead them. After they'd been following for a while, Jesus tried to tell them where they were going, but they did not understand. I mean, they may have gotten it with their heads, but they did not understand with their hearts. It's not that they though Jesus was lying or anything, but it's kind of like they were in denial, really. When Jesus talked about his death, it seemed like it was just kind of theoretical. They did not think of it as something they were going to actually experience. And when they did actually experience it, they were not ready. They were not able to follow Jesus all the way.
When we start following Jesus, there are a lot of times we don't really know where Jesus is going to lead us. After a while, we start to see that following Jesus may be hard, that it requires us to give up things, that it may even require us to give up our lives, we don't understand. We may understand it with our heads, but we don't understand with our hearts. We're in denial. It seems like it's just kind of theoretical. We don't think of it as something we're actually going to have to do. And so, when we actually experience it, a lot of times we're not ready. We're not able to follow Jesus all the way.
The disciples got another chance. Jesus did not give up on them just because they had failed. Jesus came back from the dead, and he appeared to the disciples, and this time they were ready. This time they believed and they carried on Jesus' ministry. And, in fact, nearly all of them eventually did give up their lives for Jesus and for the gospel. Almost all of the disciples were eventually killed because of their faith.
That's good news for us. If we're not ready, if we're not able to follow Jesus all the way, if we're not able to, as Jesus said, take up our cross and follow him, Jesus will not give up on us. Jesus will give us another chance.
But obviously, there comes a time when our chances come to an end. And none of us knows when that time will be. That means we need to be ready now. We need to be ready to go all the way. We need to be willing to give up our lives for Jesus and for the gospel.
It's hard. It was hard for Jesus himself. It was hard for the disciples. And it's hard for us. But Jesus did it. The disciples did it. Not the first time, but they did it. And we can do it, too. We can turn control of our lives over to God. We can accept what God does with our lives. We can put others ahead of ourselves. We can give God's love to everyone, even our enemies. And we can be ready to give up our lives for Jesus and for the gospel.
Jesus showed us the way. The disciples showed us it's possible. Now, it's up to us. God will help us, if we ask. And with God's help, we can do it. We can be ready to give up our lives for Jesus and for the gospel. We can follow Jesus all the way, even when it leads to the cross.
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