The Upside of Death March 12, 2006
Mark 8: 31-38 Pastor Mark Nieting

On this, the Second Sunday in Lent, the focus of our Gospel lesson is one that fascinates?ñ.and scares?ñ..all of us. The topic is death. Death is a very real part of life. Cells are dying all the time in our bodies. In fact, we wouldn??t be alive and we wouldn??t be who we are now unless parts of us are constantly dying. 

Look at your hand. It has five fingers because the cells that used to live between your fingers died off when you were still an embryo. The death of certain cells is what keeps us from being overrun with cancer. Cells on our skin die regularly so we have a healthy defense from the outside. And when our immune system has finished wiping out an infection, the white cells we no longer need, who have swallowed up all the nasty stuff from our bodies, commit suicide in a very orderly fashion. The human body, we can say, stays alive in large part because of death.

It??s not, though, that we like death. The story is told about an artist who asked the owner of the gallery if there was any interest shown in the paintings he had on display. ?¨I have good news and bad news,?Æ said the owner. ?¨The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your art and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. I told him yes, and he bought all 15 of your paintings.?Æ ?¨That??s wonderful,?Æ exclaimed the artist, ?¨What??s the bad news??Æ ?¨The guy was your doctor!?Æ Death?ñthe world sees it only as the ?¨downside of life.?Æ

Jesus knows that there is an upside to death. Today??s Gospel begins immediately after Peter has confessed that Jesus is the Messiah (Mark 8:29) and immediately before the wondrous moment of the transfiguration of Christ. (Mk 9)
Jesus turned to his disciples and begins to teach them that He would be rejected, suffer, die and rise again. He does it in a very matter of fact manner, almost like a biology teacher giving a lesson on cellular mitosis. 

Jesus knows this is why He has come, but the disciples don??t hear it that way. Their image of Christ is still caught up in what I call ?¨Messianic Militarism,?Æ someone who would raise up an army, defeat the Romans, and restore Israel to the glory of the days of David and Solomon. With the miracles and the crowds and the adoration of the masses, Jesus seemed to have been off to a good start. But now, with talk of betrayal, suffering and death??? Peter has never heard anything so outrageous, so he takes Jesus aside and tries to change his mind. Scripture uses the word rebuke, the same word used in Mark??s gospel when Jesus ?¨rebukes?Æ unclean spirits and calms the wind and the waves. It??s not a gentle rebuke, regardless of whether his motive was positive?ñ.wanting to save Jesus from such a fate, or negative?ñ.thinking that Jesus was ?¨NUTS!?Æ

Jesus isn??t so gentle and subtle with Peter. With all the disciples listening clearly, Jesus says to Peter, ?¨Get behind me, Satan! You??re setting your mind on things that aren??t divine, but on things that are human!?Æ (8:33par). 

It??s a stinging rebuke for Peter, for several reasons. First, it was public?ñ.and very few of us like to be rebuked publicly, do we? Next, Jesus called Peter ?¨Satan,?Æ since Peter??s attempt to dissuade Jesus from His intended mission was the same one Satan had tried on Jesus at the beginning of His ministry (Mt 4: 8-10). And finally, Jesus tells Peter that his focus on living was entirely backwards. Mark may even have been indicating the presence of an unclean spirit within Peter, one which caused Peter to focus more on the things of the world than on the things of the Spirit!

And it sure is easy to focus on things of the world, isn??t it? I watch young couples bury themselves in credit card debt trying to ?¨have it all.?Æ The media pressure to buy ?¨with no payments til 2009!?Æ is intense?ñforgetting to remind us, of course, that we will pile up so many obligations by 2009 that we??ll be in bankruptcy then. But the ?¨Stuff of the world?Æ is what most people call the indications of success; and the idea of sacrificing to get there is almost unheard of in the secular world.

Another indicator of worldly success is social acceptance: and still, Jesus tells us that he?ñ.and we?ñ.will be rejected! From these perspectives, it??s almost no wonder that Peter responds the way he does to Jesus?? description of suffering, rejection, death, and then resurrection?ñ.a concept that probably floated right over Peter??s head if he heard it at all at the end of the list.

Yet Jesus KNEW that the ?¨Son of Man?Æ?ñ. His favorite expression for himself, used 81 times by Jesus in the Gospels and never used by anyone else?ñ. MUST undergo great suffering and finally be killed. He must die because of the benefit this brings to the greater whole?ñ.then and now?ñto Peter, to us, and to everyone in between. Jesus must die to pay the price for our sins and to reconcile our sinful selves to the Father who is perfect. Jesus dies to show how much God loves us. Jesus dies to call us to follow Him in suffering servanthood. Jesus dies to achieve victory over death?ñ?ñ..Jesus dies, that we might live?ñ.forever!

Like a cell programmed to die, Jesus?? death brings benefit to the greater whole. It might seem foolish to the world, but, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1: 18, ?¨to us who are being saved, it is the power of God!?Æ The challenge for us is to see how we can find the upside of death in the lives we live every day. To be a follower of Jesus means to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the good of all and to deny ourselves for the good of others.

Taking up the cross, fighting the good fight, and following Jesus can mean many things. It can mean self-denial. It can mean personal suffering, sacrifice, or even martyrdom. Since these challenges are posed not only to the disciples, but to the entire crowd who is there listening to Jesus, we know that it??s just not pastors Jesus is talking about, or Lutheran school teachers, or even congregational officers: it??s all believers: It??s about The Holy Christian Church on earth. It??s about you.

So, how do we DO this? How DO we pick up our cross, fight the good fight and follow Jesus?

Let??s look again at the cells in our body and notice that the upside of death involves three things: 1. Seeing the big(ger) picture; 2. fighting the good fight; and 3. knowing when to get out of the way. Put these three things together and you can get a good idea of what it means to deny yourself and follow Jesus. 

First: See the big picture. Back when you were an embryo, the cells that made up the placenta that fed you for nine months didn??t have the luxury of being obsessed with their own survival. They had to die so that you could be born and live! Their death?ñ.like Jesus?? death?ñ.produced our lives! It??s true that Peter, obsessed as he was with human things, couldn??t see how this could work, but the cross was something Jesus was prepared to face because HE saw that it was part of God??s bigger picture: the divine plan of salvation.

Where is it that we need to expand OUR vision of God??s plan for us? It may be that we need to ?¨die?Æ to the idea that we are the brightest and best of God??s stars in the galaxy. Maybe it??s our own opinion of our own abilities (and gifts) that needs re-evaluation. It can take the ?¨death?Æ of pride to be willing to be a part of God??s bigger plan for His kingdom and even for this congregation. 

Second, fight the good fight. It??s helpful, of course, to pick the right fight. Lots of energy has been and still will be expended in fights that don??t matter. Our bodies are healthy when their cells are fighting germs?ñbut they aren??t healthy when the body fights with itself. How many churches have wasted incredible amounts of energy and even money fighting about things that in the end, are just plain ridiculous! How silly for churches to fight, and even split over the color of the fellowship hall or whether the flowers are on the altar or a credence table?ñ.and what a terrible witness that is for the Gospel! Yet Jesus DOES challenge us to take a stand for HIM, even when the pressure is on us?ñlike it was on Thomas or Peter or Judas to sell him out. It takes the ?¨death?Æ of self to be willing to focus on the big picture and fight to get the Gospel spread and the disciples made, and Jesus calls us to do just that, with the warning that if we don??t, He will be ashamed of us! (verse 38).

Finally, know when to get out of the way. White blood cells have an important job in our bodies, but when they are done, they self-destruct in very orderly fashion. Jesus tells us that those who work hard to SAVE their lives will lose them, but those who ?¨lose their live for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel will save it!?Æ 


In the life of the church, sometimes people have a hard time getting out of the way. Older pastors want their distinctive approaches to be remembered and revered. Older church members want the hymns of their childhood to be sung every week. Baby boomers expect their children to ?¨do church?Æ like they did and Gen-Xers are perplexed by the way the Millennials that follow them express their spirituality. At some point each of us has to remember that the church of Jesus Christ has been handed over to us, and our job is to pass on the Good News of Jesus to those who follow us. Maybe we need to learn that someone else can take the lead we have had for a long time. Maybe we need to let someone else have the credit we think we deserve. IT takes the ?¨death?Æ of self in order to be utterly Unconcerned about the glory, but radically concerned about the Gospel!

Death is a part of the Christian faith. In fact, there would be no faith without death. We need a cross?ñ.and a grave?ñ.before we can have an empty tomb and an Easter Sunday. It takes the Execution of the Son of Man before we can celebrate the Resurrection of the Son of God! That??s the upside of death!

Amen.