In the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Grace
and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord
and Savior sanctify you in the truth, for His word is truth. Amen
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (2011)
Following
Jesus Means Walking Behind Him
Matthew
16:21-28 (ESV)
From that time Jesus began to show his
disciples that he must go to
[24] Then Jesus told his disciples,
"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. [25] For whoever would
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find
it. [26] For what will it profit a man
if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in
return for his life? [27] For the Son of
Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he
will repay each person according to what he has done. [28] Truly, I say to you, there are some
standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in
his kingdom."
Through the apostle Peter’s affirmation
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, each of the disciples have
finally, although as we know weakly, come to believe the truth of who Jesus is;
however, they still incorrectly look forward to His ascension to an earthly
throne. Now, having brought the apostles to the saving knowledge of His
divinity, our Lord’s focus turns to the culmination of His earthly mission; to
die in our place upon the Altar of the Cross for our redemption from sin.
Therefore, from this moment, our Lord begins His walk to
No longer mincing words, He plainly
foretells of His impending death. He says He will be killed by the elders,
chief priests, and scribes; those who make up the Sanhedrin, the very ones who
have continued to confront Him throughout His ministry. These very people whom
He came to save reject His message and the salvation He offers. Rather than
know the boundless joy of heaven; praising God at His heavenly altar, they
would remain obsessed by earthly things and the praise of men.
Peter, who had just confessed that Jesus
was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, is shocked at his Master’s
disclosure of His impending death at the hands of the Sanhedrin, and begins to
chastise Him, blurting out, “Far be it from
you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (v. 22).
Peter is beside himself with righteous anger. How could our Lord even suggest
such a thing? This could never be! Even though Peter has made a good confession
regarding the person of Jesus, he cannot accept the truth that it is God’s plan
for the salvation of man that His Son should die and be raised from the dead.
Peter was still clinging to an earthly kingdom for Jesus, a throne that would
rule over
When Peter
confronts our Lord regarding His announcement, Jesus responds to his rebuke by
saying; “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not
setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. . . . If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me” (vv. 23, 24). Take up his cross and follow Jesus? Distorted
by man’s reason, this command by our Lord Jesus has confused men since He gave
it.
Most, if not all of you, are aware of
the popular poem Footprints in the Sand.
This poem describes a man who has a dream of walking on a beach with Jesus. As
they walk along the shore they leave two sets of footprints in the sand. The
poem implies that when one looks back, the footprints represent various stages
of this person’s life as He walked with the Lord. However, the man notices that
sometimes there are only one set of footprints, especially during the lowest
and saddest times in his life. Disturbed by this fact, the man questions Jesus,
saying, “Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you’d walk with me
all the way. But I’ve noticed that during the most troubling times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.” To which Jesus explains, “During your
times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was
then that I carried you.”
Everyone dearly loves this poem because
it illustrates what we feel in our hearts. Each of us wants to believe that as
we walk through life, we walk beside Jesus. He is with us wherever we go.
Nothing makes us feel better than believing that we can walk beside Him and
whenever life throws us a curve, He will stoop and pick us up; whenever the
consequence of sin overpowers us and we can no longer walk by ourselves, He
will carry us. However, the walk of a true Christian is not the way it is
depicted in the poem.
Fed by man’s idealism, we love to cling
to this fantasy walk on the beach with Jesus at our side. Beginning with our
decision to walk with Him, we boldly saddle up to Jesus and take on life. As we
walk, side-by-side, hand-in-hand, through life, facing all its obstacles, He
does His part, we do ours. As long as we do as much as we can, then we know
that Jesus will complete the task and carry us the rest of the way. This understanding
of life with Christ is a lie! First, there are not two sets of footprints, side-by-side
in the sand of Christian life; instead there are two, one leading the other and
those in front belong to our Lord, Jesus Christ. Secondly, God has never given
us the ability to decide to choose Jesus, rather, He chooses us. To verify
this, let’s shine the light of God’s truth on these footprints so that we can
come to a true understanding that Following
Jesus Means Walking Behind Him.
On previous occasions our Lord had made
veiled references to His death and resurrection; however, this time there is no
disguise, no one could misunderstand His meaning. Alarmed by this announcement,
Peter takes our Lord aside and standing beside Him, rebukes Him. But Jesus refuses
to walk side-by-side with Peter and turning to face him, says, “Get
behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind
on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Our Lord never walks beside man, instead He leads. However, first, He must go
to a place where no man can follow; He must go to
The path our
Lord Jesus walked on this earth was of divine planning. He alone would come
into the world and walk a completely righteous and sinless life culminating in
His death on the cross for the forgiveness of sins for all mankind. This walk
was one He undertook alone. From
When reading
John’s Gospel in the original Greek, the word translated as “follow” actually
means to “come after,” thus “follow me” means to “come after Jesus.” Moreover,
the Greek word translated as “behind” in our Gospel today also means to come “after.”
Thus when Jesus tells Peter to “Get behind me,” He is telling Peter, don’t get
in front of Me, but come after Me; follow in My footsteps. He also called
Peter, Satan. What is Satan’s greatest desire but to be in front of Jesus, to
come before Him in the hearts of men, to be worshipped before our Lord? What
better way to accomplish his goal than to have man think he can walk beside or
even ahead of Jesus in his walk through life.
This is where
false and misleading doctrines are developed, when man tries to walk beside our Lord instead of behind Him. We, who are the children of
Adam, simply don’t know our place. Just like our first father, we want to be
like God. In our sinful self-centeredness we always want to lead, or at the
very least, to be on a par with our Savior when it comes to our salvation. We
have great difficulty living with the truth that God has already established a
leader over our eternal lives, and it’s not us. It is our Lord and Savior;
Jesus Christ. When we try to walk beside our Lord Jesus, the results are always
catastrophic.
Regardless of
a person’s position in life or their vocation, no one can follow Jesus by
walking beside Him. Attempting to maintain this ungodly position, believing
that somehow we are an equal partner with Jesus in our walk through life, gets
us run over or separated every time Jesus makes a turn. Conversely, whenever we
decide to make a turn without the Lord leading, we either run into Him or we
get separated from Him. Walking side-by-side with Jesus simply doesn’t work,
because we are always getting run over or left behind.
No, there are
only one set of footprints in the sand of Christian life. Following Jesus means
we walk in His footprints, tracking His every move, step for step; because
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one gets to the Father in
heaven except by following Him.
Like Peter,
most of us have to learn this truth the hard way. Dedicated to the fulfillment
of His earthly mission, nothing detracted our Lord from following the path that
led to the Cross. Moreover, He did this without Peter or anyone else’s help.
Fulfilling His heavenly Father plan, our Lord willing sacrificed His life upon
the Altar of the Cross for the remission of our sins and then on the third day
He rose from the dead.
After the
resurrection, Peter returned to his profession as a fisherman, after having
fished all night without success, daybreak revealed a lone figure standing on
the shore. That lone figure was none other than Jesus. After breakfast, our
Lord tells Peter, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress
yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch
out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want
to go” (John 21:18 ESV). The apostle John tells us that our Lord Jesus
said this “(to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying
this he said to him, "Follow me” (John 21:19 ESV).
The earthly
analogy of the walk along the seashore breaks down as do all earthly analogies
concerning the Messiah, because even as we follow in His footsteps, Jesus must
carry us all the way. God reminds us it is He who equips us with everything
that is good so we might do His will as He works in us that which is pleasing
in His sight through His Son, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 13:21 ESV). Therefore, we
follow Jesus because He entered our life, gracing us with the gift of faith and
the Holy Spirit, which causes us to follow Him, not because we have made a
choice to follow Him (John 15:16). Whenever we try to walk beside our Lord and
give Him a helping hand with the Spirit’s work of sanctification—we either get
in the way or we get separated from Him. The Old Adam in us never gets used to
the fact that there is nothing for us to do; we have no part in our salvation.
Thus whenever the Old Adam urges us to walk along side or in front of our
Savior, He will gently, or sometimes not so gently, remind us of our place,
pushing us out of His way while saying to us: “Get behind me, Satan!”
However, after His rebuke has served its purpose, the Lord comes to us once
again, just as He did for Peter, repeating His call of love; “Follow Me!” When
you hear that call, don’t try to run ahead or along side of Jesus, but do as He
commands: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me” (v. 24).
The “theology
of glory” looks for God to appear in dramatic fashion based on the work of man.
It seeks to obtain glory the easy way, without suffering and death. In
contrast, the “theology of the cross” is an incarnational theology of
humiliation. It is a theology that looks to the suffering and death of our
Lord, Jesus Christ as well as the Old Adam within each of us, because these
must precede our entrance into God’s
To be a true
follower of Christ is to take His Cross everywhere you go, walking, “by
faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7 ESV) becoming a theologian of the
cross. His Cross becomes a part of you as you live out your daily lives as
children of God revealing your Savior and your love for Him to others in all
you say and do. Regardless of life’s trials and tribulations or its joys and
happiness, we cling to the Cross of Christ. The cross was the final goal of our
Lord’s mission on earth and He says to us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave
his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal
life” (John 3:16 (ESV). And again, He says, “By this we know love, that he
laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers”
(1 John 3:16 (ESV). Thus all we do and say is guided by the Cross of
Christ because; it is in the cross that the message of God’s love for all
mankind is found. Amen.
May the peace
of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. Amen.