If you’re new with us or a visitor with us, you may not know this is the fourth Sunday in Lent, as we move as a community of faith, not only here but also around the world, towards the incredible experience of Easter. 

 

How best to get into this text? Let me tell you a story that’s been around forever. It’s an old story, but it sort of does just what needs to be done today. The story goes this way:

 

A man is walking along the side of a cliff. He gets too close to the edge.  You can imagine what happens. He falls off. On his way down, he grabs a branch. It stops his fall, but he knows he cannot hang on forever, and so he starts yelling for help. Immediately there’s a voice from above that says, “Hey, buddy, I’m right there. It’s me, the Lord.”

 

“You mean… God?” said the man.

 

“Yep, it’s me. I’m here to help you.”

 

“Anything,” said the man, “I’ll do anything you say, Lord. Just get me out of this mess.”

 

So the Lord says, “OK, buddy. Now, I know this is going to sound a little crazy to you, but I want you to let go of the branch. Don’t worry. I’m right here. I’ll catch you.”

 

The man says, “Um… um. Let me get this straight. There’s 200 feet of air space beneath me, and you want me to let go of this branch?”

 

“Right. That’s exactly right. Just trust me. I’ll catch you.”

 

Long silence. Really long silence. Finally, the man yells up, “H-E-L-P-! Is there anybody else up there?”

 

That story’s been around forever. You ever been in that place, though? I have a feeling most of you have been in that place before. Ask my wife, Jan, about some of our climbing adventures. She’ll tell you the same thing.

 

We’ve all been there. We’ve all been in that place. Hearing God is one thing, but trusting God is something else all together. And by the way, just for your information, there are people who think they hear God, and they act on what they hear when, in fact, it’s not God at all who has spoken to them. That leads to some very, very difficult things, but that’s another story for another time.

 

You see… I am absolutely convinced most of us who try to follow Jesus basically have absolutely no idea what we’re getting ourselves into. By that I mean most of us are just like Peter. We’re just like that disciple who followed Jesus that we read about in Scripture. Here’s a young man, a fisherman, making a living. He’s married, is my guess. A family, probably. Eager, so eager when he starts out. He wants more than anything else, I believe, to make a difference in this world. He wants so much more than just going out and fishing every day, and coming in, and selling fish, and just doing the same old thing over and over again. 

 

It’s like the young lady I encountered last week. Peter wanted to change the world. He didn’t want to just survive – making a living. He wanted to change the world. And, unlike the lady I encountered this past week, Peter believed he had found the guy who was about to do just that. He was someone who was going to change the world.

 

Peter, I think, wanted to be part of a winning team. We all want to be part of a winning team like those folks who are still in the “Big Dance.” By the way, how are your brackets doing? Who’s still in this thing? Does anybody know anybody who’s still in the tournament? Well, I tell you what. Whoever they are, they can smell it. They can taste it. They are almost there. They are so excited. That’s Peter!

 

One day, however, Peter, along with the other disciples, had a little “come to Jesus meeting.” According to the Scriptures, it happens down at a place called Caesarea Philippi. Up to this point, you see, being a disciple was a pretty cushy thing – the speeches, the crowds, the healings, the miracles. It was really awesome! 

 

Jesus is the man! He’s the rising star. He’s the hero. He’s the one they’ve been waiting for. But on this particular day, Jesus takes this group of followers, sits them down, and asks them a question. It is a question that’s going to take the wind right out of their sails. Do you remember the question? The question is: “Who do people out there say that I am?”

 

One of them says, “Well, some of them say you are Elijah.” Another one says, “Well, you’re one of the prophets.” Someone in the back row says, “Dick Cheney.” (No, no, I’m sorry. Just a little fun.)

 

Jesus says, “OK, that’s what they say. Now here’s what I really want to know. Who do you say that I am?”

 

Peter, you remember, pops up and says, “You’re the Messiah. You’re the Christ. You’re the anointed, living Son of God.”

 

That was a big deal back then. Back then being a messiah really meant something. Messiah! The Anointed of God. The Christ of God. He wasn’t someone who came to just merely try to make a difference in the world. The Messiah was someone who the people believed would make a different world altogether. See the difference? 

 

Messiah was leader. Messiah was ruler. Messiah had power. Messiah came to set things right. Messiah restored justice and used any means necessary to see that things were done properly. The by-product of justice, as we all know, is that’s how peace happens. That’s what makes for peace, and for prosperity, and harmony – what the Bible calls “shalom.”

 

Peter said, “You are the Messiah.” Peter had plans for Jesus, which is why, I think, he probably felt like he had been hit by a train when Jesus told him he was wrong. Not about the Messiah part, but about what kind of Messiah Jesus was going to be. No Super Bowl ring for Jesus. No office, no throne, no halls of power, no five stars on his uniform, no resources like Microsoft at his disposal. Jesus said the Son of Man must suffer, and be rejected, and die. And then, after three days, rise.

 

Peter only heard the first three, I think. Suffer, rejection, die. And on that awful day down at Caesarea Philippi, I think Peter just simply had the rug pulled right out from under him. It just didn’t make any sense. 

 

Messiah! Messiah suffers? Messiah rejected? Messiah – death? There is no way. These don’t go together.

 

So that’s when our text begins today with three words. Do you remember the first three words of our text? “Six days later.” Six days after Jesus dropped the bomb. Six days later after the wheels came off, Jesus then took Peter, James, and John up onto a high mountain. If you don’t know the context, this story doesn’t make any sense to you at all.

 

No I don’t know this, but maybe Jesus overheard Peter calling his Dad back at the beach wondering if the old boat was still afloat and if there was still a place for his son who had been out on the road for several years. It’s hard to say. We don’t know. All we know is that this didn’t make any sense. Messiahs do not suffer. Messiahs are not rejected. Messiahs don’t get crucified. All we know is that something happened, however, when they went up on the mountaintop. Something happened!

 

Mark doesn’t elaborate. All he says is that Jesus changed. He was transformed. His appearance, his clothing, everything suddenly, somehow, lit up. His face shone. His whole countenance changed. The only word Mark can come up with to describe it is the word “glory.” What a great word.

 

Then, according to Mark, Moses appears. Elijah appears. Peter must have felt like he was attending a really bad, scary movie. I mean… Dead people were showing up. Moses, the liberator of his people, the person who led the people out of Egypt into the wilderness from slavery… He had been dead 1000 years. There he was. And Elijah, the king of the prophets, the spokesperson, the voice of God to the people of God… He had been dead for 500 years. There he was. And that’s when Peter heard God’s voice thunder down from heaven with what I think must have sounded sort of like Dean Berry’s baritone voice at communion time. Have you ever heard him give the communion prayer here?

 

[In a deep baritone voice] “THIS IS MY SON, MY BELOVED. LISTEN TO WHAT HE SAYS. HE KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING.”

 

“Actually, Lord, I like Plan B better. We could stay up here on the hill. We’ll shine a little bit. We might not change the world a great deal, but we could brighten it up a little bit. It sounds a whole lot better than the suffering, and rejection, and death deal you’ve been… You know?”

 

I really connect with Peter. I really resonate with Peter. Don’t you? I mean, if we were put in that same position, wouldn’t we definitely opt for Plan A? Right? I don’t think we would. I mean… Suffering, rejection, death! Those don’t go with Messiah. Those are for losers. Those are for wimps. Those are for has-beens.

 

Do you begin to see how incredible it is, folks, that Christianity has somehow endured and spread around this globe for 2,000 years with that kind of story line? I mean… Jesus is not exactly what you’d call the model of success in today’s world. Here he is, born a peasant in a middle-Eastern town, a little dusty out-of-the-way no kind of place. He preached abundant life, but died penniless before he was 35 years of age. His best friends abandoned him in his most difficult time. He was tried in a court of law as a criminal and executed by the state, because he was disturbing the peace. Not exactly what we call the picture of success.

 

The question today: How in the world did this movement with this kind of story line survive for so long? How did it happen?

 

I have to tell you something. You may already know this. There is a new thing happening in many churches, particularly in our culture. You walk into them, and there is no cross. You walk into them, and there is absolutely no sign anywhere of suffering, rejection, or death. The reason is very simple. The reason is that suffering doesn’t sell. People don’t go to church because they want to get the willies. People come to church because they want to go home feeling good about themselves. They want to be reminded they have a good buddy named Jesus who is going to lead them to successful and prosperous living and to guarantee them they will go to heaven if they just say the right words – those magic words – and receive him in the hearts sometime before they croak. 

 

“Show me the grace. Show me the glory. Spare me the cost. Spare the commitment. Cut it out.”

 

Folks, there is a message that is scary today. It’s a message of humanity without sin. It’s a message of grace without the cross. It’s a message of the kingdom of God without judgment. It’s a message of Easter without Good Friday. 

 

Now, let me tell you a little secret I learned from Mark this week. That little glimpse of glory? It didn’t work. The whole reason Jesus took Peter, James, and John on top of that hill was to give them a glimpse of the end of the story.

 

I have a friend named Nancy. She’ll be here next hour, I think. She almost always reads the last page first of every book she picks up. Do you do that? How many of you do that? There are always one or two. They read the end of the story first. 

 

Folks, the experience of those disciples on the mountain was God’s way of letting those three folks have just a little peek – just a little chance – to see what is on the last page of the story.

 

The fact of the matter is, yes, there was a fate waiting for Jesus when they came down that mountain. It involved three tough things: suffering, rejection, and death, but it was not the end of the story, says God. God says, according to Mark, “Let me just give you a little peek. Let me just let you see Jesus full of glory, enjoying his friends more. You know… Friends like Moses and Elijah. And after the suffering, after the rejection, after the death, that’s when he’ll be glorified. That’s when he’ll be marked by the beauty, the splendor, the happiness of heaven. Do you get that?”

 

Folks, the gospel according to Mark says that without the cross, no one gets to see the glory. Read more. Just read the whole thing from beginning to end.

 

In Mark, there is absolutely no one who gets it. No one! Not until the very end of the Book. But there is one. Do you remember who it was? It was a soldier. It was a Roman centurion. He wasn’t even a religious guy. He was the one who stood at the foot of the cross and understood what no one else in the company had seen for three whole years. He was the one who said, “Truly, this was the Son of the Living God.”

 

Mark says that no one – not you, not me, not anybody else – can know the Christ apart from his suffering, his rejection, and his death. It’s the only way we or anyone else are going to be to experience the real deal. The only way we’re really going to be able to experience the real deal. The only way we are going to know him is by his stripes, by his wounds, by his scars.

 

This is the Anointed One. Folks, the very heart of the faith that you and I are a part of is the fact that Jesus “took upon himself the sufferings of the people, for he was wounded for our transgressions. Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises, his wounds, we are healed. He was oppressed and afflicted in every way. He was like a lamb led to the slaughter, but he never said a word. By a perversion of justice, he was taken away.”

 

“Who,” asks Isaiah, “who in the world could even have imagined his future?” We had no idea, but that’s the kind of Messiah, folks, that the Creator is offering to the world.

 

You know… There are lots of Messiahs being offered today by a variety of groups and philosophies. We are a people who hear of a kind of Messiah who takes on the suffering of the world upon his shoulders, and in that comes healing, and in that comes salvation. Those two words mean exactly the same thing in the Scripture. And out of the healing, out of that salvation comes new life. It’s not only for today, not only for tomorrow, but for eternity.

 

That’s the kind of Messiah who someday is going to save this world – a broken world, a battered world today. Someday when the kingdom comes and God’s will is going to be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” and the mechanism for that is the Suffering Servant. It’s almost lost in today’s world.

 

I ask you to think about it, reflect upon it, celebrate it, lift it up as we move from where we are today to where we’re going to be in a few weeks.

 

And we all say together… “Amen.”

 

 

Redeeming One, thank you for walking with us and for helping us to shoulder our personal crosses. Thank you for the cross you took up on our behalf, and for the suffering you took upon yourself for the sake of your people. Amen.