+ 4th Sunday after Pentecost – June 28th, 2020 +
Series A: Jeremiah 28:5-9; Romans 7:1-13; Matthew 10:34-42
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” Matthew 10:34-42
Jesus’ words are full of seeming contradiction. Jesus, the Prince of Peace who promises “Peace, I leave you, my peace I give to you” says to His disciples, “I have not come to bring peace to the earth but a sword.” This is not what we expect Jesus to sound like.
And if that isn’t shocking enough, Jesus turns up the heat. He goes on…
35 For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’[c]
37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
What does all of this mean? Remember the context here. Jesus is sending out his disciples, his apostles. Jesus has warned them of the persecution that is coming. He’s taught them they need not fear because they are of more value than many sparrows. He’s promised to be with them. And now he is teaching his disciples – then and now - that nothing can come between us and Him, because without Him we will lose everything, including our own lives. Jesus places Himself over every human relationship. So, to love another more than Christ is to make that person, whether they are father, mother, son, or daughter into an idol. Idols always crumble under the pressure of being our gods. They will disappoint us; they will fail to live up to our expectations; and ultimately they cannot save us.
But the sword of Jesus isn’t quite done yet. The sword that brings division must divide us even from ourselves. “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Crosses kill. They stand for our death. The cross is not simply the little bumps, bruises, and inconveniences of this life. The cross is our death. Jesus is telling His disciples and all who would follow Him that to follow Him means losing all in order to gain it all. Everything we are, and everything we have in this life, must be nailed to the cross with Christ. We must literally become nothing so that Christ might be everything.
“Whoever finds life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This is the key and the heart of faith. Where do you find your life? In yourself, your achievements, your abilities, your riches? You will lose it. To find our life in the things of this world is to find a life doomed to die with the things of this world. But to lose your life in the world for the sake of Christ, to die with Him and be joined to His cross, is to find the one real life who is the Life.
Christ must be at the center. Not somewhere in our top ten list – but at the top, the heart, the center. Christ must get between father and son, mother and daughter, between each and every one of us. Christ must stand in the breach or there will be no true and lasting peace.
These last few months, especially these past few weeks have revealed our longing for peace. A true and lasting peace. We want peace in our world, in our communities, in our families. The trouble is we want peace in our terms, according to our agenda. We seek peace in the security of wealth, thinking that if only we had enough for tomorrow and the next day and the next year, we could have a measure of peace today. But there never is enough, and each new acquisition brings with it new anxiety.
We seek peace in solitude, in isolation from others, thinking that if we could just insulate ourselves from the negative impact and energy of others, then we could have some measure of peace within ourselves. So, we wall ourselves behind little glowing screens, ignoring the real world around us with its real people in favor of a virtual world we think we can control.
We seek peace within ourselves, urged on by the notion that peace means “feeling good about ourselves.” And wherever we turn, no matter how loudly the prophets of peace shout “Peace, peace” there is no peace.
The only way to peace is the shed blood of Jesus. This is no cheap or temporary peace that Jesus is speaking of here. No half-hearted, comfortably complacent peace worked out by compromise. This is peace that comes with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, a sharp two-edged sword of Law and Gospel that both kills and makes alive, that opens the wound and heals it.
The sword Jesus brings is a sword that touched Him as well. His cross comes first, then your cross. His death comes first, then your death. It was for the sake of our sin and our salvation that He came under the Law, that He refused the easy peace of compromise with this world. The sword divided Father from Son. The sword put His mother Mary at the foot of His cross and pierced her soul with grief. The sword caused Jesus to experience the God-forsakenness of our humanity, the darkness of God’s wrath, the suffering of our sin. He took up His cross to lead humanity through death to life. It’s the only way for a sinner to live before God and that is to die with Jesus. Not simply to die. Everyone does that sooner or later. But to die with Jesus. To take up your cross, your death, and follow Jesus in the way He goes, namely through death to eternal life.
This is what he gives you in your Baptism. You are the body of Christ. Your life is not your own. You belong to Christ, wholly and completely.
And only in Christ can there be peace in the family, peace in the world, peace in your hearts and minds. He didn’t come to bring the world’s notion of peace. He came to bring a sword, the sword of His cross. And by that sword, you have a peace the surpasses your understanding, a peace the world cannot give, a peace the goes on forever.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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