Whoever is Ashamed of Jesus and His Word: A Lenten Meditation on Mark 8

After admonishing St. Peter for trying to dissuade Jesus from His Cross, Jesus begins teaching His disciples about the sacrificial nature of life with Him.  Jesus came not to be served, but to serve, giving His life to save His people.  Any delusions His disciples may have nurtured about a life of prosperity, wealth, power or prestige, Jesus dashes against the rocks when He tells them:

“Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Despite the growing numbers of false teachers whose books dominate Christian book stores and publishing houses, Jesus does not promise anyone a life in this world marked with prosperity, wealth, prestige, or ease.  It is certainly true that some people find themselves with more resources and vocational duties than others, but these are not distinctive marks of the Christian life.  Jesus teaches His disciples, both then and now, that the Christian life is not something wrapped up in the relative affluence or suffering of this life—rather, the Christian life is hidden in the life of Christ.

It is easy for anyone to lose sight of this truth.  In a world that is marked by work and reward, by power and domination, we can quickly forget that the world we live in today is passing away.  This world, with all its clawing for position and fame, the ruthless pursuits of money and power, the abuse and subjugation of the weak by the strong, the presumptuous pomposity of the intellectual over the common man:  all these are fruits of a fallen creation, destined for the fire.  It is a world in which we all live, and a world that calls everyone to believe in themselves.  It is a world that sells endless periodicals as windows into celebrity, and holds them up as the idols of the age.  It is a world that traffics in the sale of children and pornography, putting a price on every vice that titillates the fancies of man.  It is a world where cinema, literature, and theatre promote abandon to carnal desires, where one’s duty is to self gratification.  It is a world that tolerates every form of evil, but cannot stand the piercing light of the good.  It is a dark and fallen world that we live in, as even our own fallen nature harmonizes with the discord all around us, like a symphony of cacophony in endless screeching loop.

But Jesus knows our world, our nature, and our struggle.  It is into this fallen world He has come, giving His life as a ransom for the fallen people within it.  It is into our struggle against death that He comes, giving Himself into death that we might not die forever.  It is into our filth and our mire that He pours His most holy and precious Blood, that we might be washed clean.

But how is it that our Lord has come, even to us?  It is by His Word.  He Himself is the very Word Made Flesh, the will of the Father to save mankind.  He is the Word by which the heavens and the earth were created, and the Word by which it is sustained until its end.  He is the Word of the Law which speaks from the holiness of God’s eternal throne to dead and dying sinners.  He is the Word of the Gospel which speaks from the wretched wood of His Holy Cross, drawing every penitent heart to Himself.  He is the Word of Resurrection and Life that speaks from His open tomb, shattering the bonds and fear of death.  He is the Word of Faith and Repentance which He sent His Apostles out into the world to preach, that all may hear, believe, and live.  He is the Word of the Prophets and the Apostles, who everywhere and always point to Him as the Savior of the World.  He is the Word which shall split the heavens like a thunderous trumpet on the Last Day, judging the living and the dead.  He is the Word of the Lord that abides forever, preserving all those who abide in Him by grace through faith.

And this is why it is so shameful for mankind to abuse, disparage, or discard the Word of God.  Our age is marked by a strange confluence of rationalism that is ashamed of the simplicity of the Word; of mysticism that is ashamed of the external nature of the Word; of post-modernism that is ashamed of the truth of the Word; of paganism that is ashamed of the God to whom the Word bears witness; of politics that are ashamed of the radical polarization of good versus evil in that Word; of hedonists that are ashamed of the restrictions on human depravity found in that Word; of captains of industry that are ashamed of the love and compassion given supremacy in that Word; of churches who are ashamed of the self denial and way of the Cross given by that Word.

But regardless of the shame some have for the Word of God, it is still the only means of salvation for every man, woman, and child who will ever be born upon this sphere.  Jesus, the suffering and dying Servant, is the only hope for dead and dying sinners, mired in the muck of a dead and dying world.  Jesus was not ashamed to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, but He will be ashamed of all those dead and dying sheep, who prefer sin, death, hell and the devil over the salvation He offers them by His Word.  In Jesus, by His grace and mercy, there is no shame in being a sinner saved by His Word.  But apart from His Word through which we receive His abundant grace, mercy, and sacrificial love, there is nothing but eternal shame and destitution for those who refuse so great a gift.

May the Word of Life dwell in His people richly, and may we, enlivened unto faith by His Holy Spirit, abide in His saving Word forever.  Amen.