14th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 17) – September 3rd, 2023
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Matthew 16:21–28
“Take Up My Cross”
Theme: Faith is a race, and Christ is our goal. Taking up the crosses are those trials in this life that will come to us as we run with endurance.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Long-distance events at track meets always fascinate me. When it comes to short-distance events like the 100m, you just run as fast as you can. There’s not a whole lot of pacing. You just gotta go fast. But with longer distances, especially with marathons or half-marathons, you must pace yourself up until the last home stretch when you can then pick up the pace and end in a sprint. If you pace yourself too fast, you may run out of gas before getting to the end. But if you pace yourself too slow, you may not be able to finish fast enough to win the race. Whether you’re watching these races at the local high school track or in movies on the big screen or in the Olympics on TV, we all recognize that the excitement grows as the racers near the finish line.
We could compare Jesus’s ministry to his running a race. He starts with his Baptism, and off he goes straight into the temptations by the devil. He gets through that and teaches and heals and everything else. Here, Jesus is nearing the finish line. This happens less than a year before Holy Week. His focus is turning to the reason why he was sent. Peter’s confession last week draws him to explain his purpose this week. Jesus came to suffer, die, and rise. That’s where his eyes are set.
It’s like when a runner sees the finish line, their eyes are focused on it. Jesus doesn’t want any distractions. Get everyone out of the way. The devil tried distracting Jesus in his three temptations in the wilderness. Peter tries to distract Jesus here. He says, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (22). What did Peter want? We don’t know for sure.
Maybe it was just to avoid suffering—we all do that. Maybe he wanted great glory out of Jesus as an earthly Messiah-King. Whatever it was, Jesus responds to Peter as if he was Satan: “Get behind me, Satan!” (23). You’re doing the work of Satan. “You are a [stumbling block] to me” (23). If Jesus is in a race for your salvation, what Peter is saying is like a roadblock in the way to the line. “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (23).
The things of man are earthly glory or the avoidance of suffering. The things of God include Jesus suffering, dying, and rising to save you. Jesus was totally focused on that. In Luke, we hear that Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).
Jesus accomplished his goal and finished his race. He suffered in your place. He died to take away your sins. He rose again to promise you eternal life.
We too have a race to run. The Bible often uses the language of a race to speak about our Christian life. There are good reasons for this. Our life is not a sprint. It’s a long-distance race. There will be hindrances and obstacles. The devil wants to distract you from your goal.
Like Peter, he either uses good or bad things to pull you off the racecourse. Good things might be the pleasures of this world that are distractions. Bad things might not seem worth suffering. We are tempted to avoid them. St. Paul encourages us to exercise self-control: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor 9:21–27).
Race that you may obtain the prize that Christ has already won for you. Exercising self-control is about saying no to sinful things that will lead you off the race track.
Rather, we are to take up Christ’s cross. Jesus talks about this race by saying, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (24). Taking up Jesus’s cross means to accept that suffering will happen in this life. We look past all the things in this life to the glory that Jesus has won for us. We know that in the midst of the present sufferings, Jesus remains with us. If your muscles are getting sore as you run this race, God does not want you to give up on him. He will grant you the strength to keep going.
Jesus goes on to talk about this life compared to the next. Don’t try to save your life here at any cost, especially the cost of your faith. If you lost your life here for being a Christian, then you will find a better life after death. Also, it’s not worth gaining the whole world if it’s done in unbelief. You can’t take things of this world with you. You can’t buy eternal life either—by good works or money.
When it comes to God and eternal salvation, put everything earthy behind you. You do not run alone: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1–2).
Jesus counted it as joy that he could die on the cross for you. He had you on his mind as he died. So in this life, we look to him as we run this race with endurance. He is our finish line. He is the one we are running toward. In this image of Hebrews, we are not alone. We have a crowd cheering us on all around us. They are called the cloud of witnesses. They are your fellow Christians who want to see you in heaven one day. They are your parents and grandparents and ancestor who have died in the faith. We cannot pray to them, but they have been witnesses to us of God’s grace. They are the saints of all ages: St. Paul, St. Peter, and many others.
And finally, when your last hour comes, you will cross that finish line one day. It will either be when you die or when Christ our Lord comes again. Regardless, we can echo the words of St. Paul in one of his last letters: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Tim 4:7–8).
May this be spoken of all of us, that we have loved Christ’s appearing in the flesh. That we have loved what he did for us by suffering, dying, and rising. That we have taken up his cross and run the race set before us. That we have kept our eyes on Him, even through the distractions that the devil has set in our way. After all, we are running a marathon, not a sprint, and life in this world is one of patient endurance.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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