Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

This sermon wasn’t preached. It was written for class but I was out of town that weekend.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus says, “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

That sentence can be easy to misunderstand. People sometimes talk about “their cross” as if every hard thing in life is automatically proof of faithfulness. A bad back. A difficult family member. A frustrating job. A long season of grief. “Well, that’s just my cross to bear.”

Now, those things may be real. They may hurt deeply. They may require patience, endurance, prayer, and faith. But Jesus is not telling you to identify your hurts as proof that you love Him. The cross is not merely pain. It is not merely suffering. It is not simply whatever makes life hard.

The cross is defined by who it is for.

That is true first of Jesus’ own cross. Jesus did not die because He had bad luck. He did not die because His enemies finally outmaneuvered Him or because the powers of this world were stronger than He was. Jesus says elsewhere, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”

Jesus did not die because of His enemies. He died for them.

That is what separates sacrifice from tragedy.

A tragedy is when innocent blood is shed and evil seems to win. But the cross is more than tragedy. It is sacrifice. Christ gives Himself for sinners. He gives Himself for the very world that rejects Him. He gives Himself for Peter who denies Him, for the crowds who mock Him, for the soldiers who crucify Him, for you and for me, for His enemies.

That is why Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 are so sharp. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

That sounds strange, because Jesus, as we know, is the Prince of Peace. At His birth the angels proclaim peace on earth. After His resurrection He stands among His disciples and says, “Peace be with you.”

So what does He mean?

Jesus does not mean that He loves conflict. He does not mean that Christians should be quarrelsome people who go around looking for fights, and make no mistake, there are Christians who do that, especially on social media. He means that His peace is not the false peace of pretending everything is fine while sin remains untouched. His Word cuts. His Word divides. His Word exposes every loyalty that would take the place of God in our lives and in the world.

That division can reach even into the household: father against son, daughter against mother, a person’s enemies within his own house. Jesus is not attacking the family. He is showing that even the best earthly gifts must not become ultimate in our lives. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”

That is hard because we want a Jesus who fits neatly into life as we already have it arranged. We want Jesus to bless our priorities, affirm our loyalties, and stay quiet when He becomes inconvenient. We want peace, but often what we mean by peace is no disruption, no repentance, no conflict, no cross. But that is not true peace.

Jeremiah 28 gives us a picture of that false peace. Hananiah promises that everything will be restored quickly. The yoke of Babylon will be broken. The vessels of the temple will return. It sounds hopeful. It sounds patriotic. It sounds comforting. But Jeremiah says, in effect, “Amen. May the Lord do so. But the prophet who prophesies peace is known as truly sent by the Lord only when the word comes to pass.”

False peace is easy to preach but hard to achieve. True peace comes only through the Word of the Lord.

Romans 7 teaches the same hard truth from another angle. God’s Law is holy and righteous, and good, but the Law does not cure sin. It exposes it. Paul says, “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” The commandment comes, and sin springs to life. The Law shows us that the problem is not merely out there in the world. Moving your family to another part of the country won’t help. You can’t escape it. Sin is in you.

That is why Jesus’ sword must cut before His peace heals. He cuts away the illusion that we are basically fine. He cuts away the idols we hide behind. He cuts away the false peace that says we can love Christ and still keep Him second.

And then He says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

This is not Jesus demanding that you save yourself by suffering enough. It is not Jesus saying, “Prove your devotion by how miserable you can be.” It is Jesus calling you out of the doomed project of self-preservation.

Because the life you try to save apart from Christ cannot be saved. The peace you try to protect apart from Christ cannot last. The righteousness you try to build apart from Christ will collapse under the Law.

But the life lost in Christ is found in Him.

This is because before Jesus ever tells you to take up your cross, He takes up His. Before He calls you to lose your life for His sake, He gives His life for your sake. Before He calls you to love Him above father and mother, son and daughter, He loves you above His own comfort, His own safety, His own life. He leaves His Father and mother and holds fast to His bride, the Church.

He goes to the cross for sinners who did not love Him first. He goes there for disciples who run away. He goes there for families broken by sin. He goes there for people who want peace without repentance and life without death. He goes there for you.

And there, on the cross, He does not simply become an example of suffering. He becomes your Savior.

His blood answers the accusations of the Law. His death atones for your sin. His resurrection gives you the life you could never preserve for yourself. In Him, you are forgiven. In Him, you are made new. In Him, you find the life you were always afraid to lose.

So what does it mean for you to take up your cross?

It means that your life is no longer curved inward on itself. It means you are free from having to use every hurt as proof of your holiness. It means you are free from the desperate need to protect yourself at all costs.

To take up your cross is not merely to suffer. It is to sacrifice for the neighbor Jesus died for.

That may happen in your family, when faithfulness to Christ makes life uncomfortable, but you still speak the truth in love. It may happen when you forgive someone who has not earned it, because Christ forgave you freely. It may happen when you give time, patience, attention, money, mercy, or care to someone who cannot repay you.

Jesus ends our Gospel reading with surprisingly small things: receiving a prophet, receiving a righteous person, giving one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple.

A cup of cold water is not impressive. It is not dramatic. It will not make headlines. But Jesus sees it. Jesus remembers it. “Truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

Why? Because the life of faith is not measured by how spectacular your suffering looks. It is shaped by the cross of Christ. And Christ’s cross is love given for the undeserving.

So take heart. Jesus has not come to give you a shallow peace that leaves sin untouched. He has come to give you true peace through His death and resurrection. He has not called you to prove yourself by your pain. He has called you to die and rise in Him.

And in Him, whoever loses his life will find it.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.