Calvary Lutheran Church

Jesus Predicts His Own Suffering and Death

May the God of peace fill you with all joy in believing. Amen.

Matthew 16:21-27

“Jesus Predicts His Own Suffering and Death”

Dear Christian Friends:

            One of the most intriguing questions about Jesus, to which the Bible gives no answer, is this: what did Jesus know and when did he know it? For example, when did he know that he was the Messiah, the very Son of God? Did he know it from little on when his parents told him of his miraculous birth and the announcement of angels and the visit of the Magi? Did he first know it at the age of 12 when he said to his parents in the temple, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Did he first know it when he was baptized, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”? (Matthew 3:17). When did he know that he was God?

            One answer, of course, is that he knew it according to his God-nature, after all, as God he knew everything. But the Bible says that although Jesus was in the very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. That means he was just like you and me, yet without sin. So he gathered his information gradually just like we do, by our senses, by what we see and hear and think.

            But by this time in our text, we can say that Jesus knew a great deal, if not all, about his imminent suffering and death. He could name the place—it would be Jerusalem, the very center of hostility against him. The Jews would not need to track him down in some distant hiding place. He would put himself into their hands. He could name the circumstances—he would “suffer many things.” Jesus omits telling his disciples about the scourging, the crown of thorns, the mockery, the delivery into the hands of Pilate. Perhaps he left out the details in order to soften the terrible news. He could name the people who would be responsible—"the elders, the chief priests and scribes”. And he knew he would be “killed.” The original Greek word here means “to be put out of the way,” “to be murdered,” “to be robbed of life.”

            But then the most shocking prediction of all—he knew he would raise again on the third day. The Old Testament did predict that the Messiah would rise from the dead. Isaiah, after all, wrote in chapter 53, “After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied,” (Isaiah 53:11). But nowhere in the Old Testament did it predict that the resurrection would happen three days after his death. But Jesus himself knew that little detail as well when he made the analogy with Jonah’s stay in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights. 

            And that last detail of his resurrection should have encouraged the disciples and filled them with an overwhelming sense of joy. But it didn’t. It seemed to pass right over their heads. All they heard was the terrible suffering and death of their Lord. So Peter took Jesus aside by himself, obviously intending to get Jesus’ full attention, and he said to him, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” Literally, the Greek says, “Mercy on you, Lord.” In other words, may God in his mercy ward off this calamity that you are talking about.  Peter could not possibly imagine why it would be necessary for the Son of God to suffer and die. It seemed so out of keeping with his position as the Messiah and his dignity as the most popular teacher in the nation. “Lord, this will never happen to you. If you won’t see to it, then I will.”

            I think I know what Peter’s problem was. He was too much like you and me in our human thinking. He made the same mistake that we all too often make ourselves when we fail to comprehend the seriousness, the damnable nature of our sins. Because of sin, we have angered God terribly, so much so that it took, yes, the very Son of God hanging and dying on a cross to appease that anger. And that failure on Peter’s part and ours, is what is called “spiritual blindness.” It’s the work of Satan.

            In fact, Jesus actually went so far to call Peter Satan, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me.” Jesus looked right through Peter and saw behind him his old enemy Satan. Satan was cunningly using Peter’s spiritual blindness to bring back those old temptations in the wilderness shortly after Jesus’ baptism. Remember, Satan’s temptation for Jesus then was to avoid any suffering, “If you are hungry, turn these stones into bread. ” Satan’s temptation then was to demand that God the Father protect him from any harm, “throw yourself down from this high pinnacle, the Lord will send his angels to keep you safe.” And Satan’s temptation then was to enjoy all the wealth and pleasure that this world has to offer, “all this I will give if you just bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to Peter, “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”   

            Now Peter, I’m sure, meant well. After all, he loved the Lord, and we don’t like to see our loved ones suffer. But he just didn’t know what he was saying. In reality, he was suggesting the worse scenario possible. By not wanting Jesus to go to the cross, Peter was asking for his and our spiritual ruin. Because Peter’s redemption and salvation, not to mention our redemption and salvation, could not be accomplished without the cross.

            After revealing for the first time in detail his imminent suffering and death, Jesus took the opportunity to make a comparison. The comparison was between what Jesus was about to go through and what his disciple would go through to remain his followers, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

            To “deny one’s self” means to renounce whatever comes into competition with our love and service to Christ. And to “bear one’s cross” does not mean simply to endure some kind of pain or suffering or sorrow, after all, even non-followers of Jesus have many kinds of pain and suffering and sorrows, but they have no cross. Our cross as followers of Jesus is that suffering which is the direct result of our faithful connection with Christ.          

           Now these words may be somewhat disturbing to us. Not because we are unwilling to deny themselves, to take up our crosses, and to follow Jesus, but we may feel that we really haven’t had to do either. What have you truly denied yourself because of your faith? How many crosses are you bearing simply because you are a follower of Christ? Oh, we may have our little inconveniences of giving up our time to come here for worship and Bible study and maybe serving in the church in some capacity. But it is not that much time that we are giving up. And we may sacrifice a portion, maybe a generous portion, of our wealth, our income, to give to the Lord, but we still have more than enough left over for ourselves.  

          I can’t say that my life has been terribly afflicted by my confessing Jesus. In fact, my Christian life has been for the most part a blessing to me. I have associated with many fine people that I’ve met through church. I’ve always had a place to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, a place to be married and a place someday to be buried. I have been able to earn a good living by being a pastor. If being a follower of Christ means self-denial and crosses, and if I’ve had neither, then the disturbing thought that comes to mind is this,  “Am I really his follower?”  

          If someone was describing to you a hiking trail that you wanted to take, and they told you that along the way you would encounter steep grades and rocky paths and thorns and thistles; but when you started your hike you found yourself on a nice level path with a smooth surface and beautiful green surroundings, you would think that you had lost your way and were on the wrong path. And you’d be right. So also being followers of Christ, when we are told that the path of discipleship is a matter of denying self and carrying a cross, but we experience neither, we too may well think that we are on the wrong path.

            It’s a very sobering thought. So sobering, in fact, that it has caused some to seek out their own self-denial and crosses. It has led some to follow some form of asceticism, that is, either an active or passive denial of life’s pleasures or necessities. Extreme forms of asceticism have included self-mutilation, or fasting, or pole-sitting (sitting on top of a pole or column for years. The record for pole sitting was set by Simeon Stylites the Elder in the fifth century for sitting on a small platform on top of a column for 36 years. This is how he was denying self for Christ), or abstinence from marriage, or withdrawal from the world. Martin Luther thought that following Christ and earning his favor meant shutting himself up in a monastery.

            But we don’t have to go out and look for self-denial and crosses, self-denial and crosses will find us. There are enough opportunities in everyday life to keep us busy with self-denial and crosses. The asceticism that Christ is talking about here is the moral struggle we go through to become masters over our old man, our old sinful nature. Paul wrote, “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6). That is true asceticism.

          We are in no danger of Roman crucifixion, that practice lasted only a short time. Pilate and Caiaphas are gone, they are no longer a threat. All of the disciples except John suffered martyrdom, but the physical persecutors of Christians today have not reached our location in the world yet. But there is one with us today who is a threat, and that is self—this body of sin we live with everyday. And the only effective way of dealing with self is to deny it and nail it to the cross.

          Paul gave a partial list of some of the acts of the sinful nature in Galatians 5. They are, "sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21). Sinful acts like these may be hard to overcome, but if we never wrestle with them, or if we don’t go through great pains to overcome them, my friends, we may well think that we are on the wrong path, and we would be right. May we bid our old sinful nature farewell and then bear the self-denial and crosses that come with doing so.    

            But finally, to encourage his disciples to continue the struggle, Jesus asked his disciples to do some price comparing, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? The Jews were very cost-conscious. They were shrewd when it came to finances. Perhaps you think of yourself in the same way. You know a bargain when you see one, and you know when you are being ripped off. Well, Jesus brings this whole matter of discipleship down to a simple question of profit and lost. He said, “Write on the credit side, the gain side, of the financial ledger all the money, all the gold, and silver, all the pleasures of the whole world. Now, of course, no one person could ever gain all that. But let’s just suppose for the moment that you could. And then on the other side of the ledger, the debit side, the side that is spent or lost or given up, put your soul. You’ve gained the whole world, but you lost your soul.” Now Jesus asks, “What is your gain, what is your profit margin?” The answer is zero. You would have nothing. Indeed, you would have infinitely worse than nothing, because you would have exchanged temporary pleasure for eternal misery.”

            “Or,” Jesus said, “Let me put it another way. Put your soul on one side of a balance scale. And then try to think of what you could possibly put on the other side that would even it out and make it equal. No matter what you could think of, it would never equal the value of your own soul.”

          Then Jesus said, “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.” Jesus was saying, “I’m coming back some day with balance scale in hand to make an accounting.  I will put on one side those who cared for the things of the world to live a life of accumulation and ease and comfort, and on the other side, those who cared for the needs of the soul, in spite of self-denial and crosses it brought. So which way do you think the balance beam will tip? You don’t have to be a shrewd business person to know the answer. Amen.



May we pray:

O Jesus Christ, Lamb of God. You suffered the anguish and death of the cross to win forgiveness for our sins and eternal life. It is with both sadness and joy that we view your suffering and death. Deep sorrow fills our hearts because we know it was our sins that brought you to the cross, yet, great joy that your suffering and death are evidence of the love you have for us, because you did it knowing full well what laid ahead.

Let us never become careless as we confess our sins, or grow cold toward the love and mercy of God, or despise the sacrifice you made in our behalf. Ever make the eternal redemption you won for us the treasure of our hearts and the desire of our souls. May we daily put to death our sinful nature and evermore live righteously as your true followers, yes, to the extent of denying ourselves and carrying our crosses. We praise your holy name. Amen.