at the crossroads

Kent M. Organ, Interim Pastor
Text: Mark 8:27-37

​Everything  is about to change  for Jesus and his friends. They are about to leave  the halcyon days of Galilee, with its adoring crowds.  They are heading for Jerusalem.

It’s the turning point,  time for  mid-term exams.  So Jesus asks them, “Who do  you say that I am?”  And Peter gets it right. “You are the Messiah of God,  the Christ.” But Jesus warns, “There’s a cross ahead for me.  And for you also.”  

Peter protests.  Jesus reacts: “Get behind me, Satan.”  Which is pretty rough  on poor old Peter.  He was just  trying to be upbeat,  positive.  “Don’t talk  crosses,” he says to Jesus.  “You don’t have to suffer. You’re the Messiah.”  And Jesus rebuked him.  Because he knew  it wasn’t going to be easy.  

Everything that had happened up to this point  had been wonderful.  Jesus came on the scene  casting out demons,  healing all kinds of diseases, saying uplifting things. He announced  a new way of living.  He forgave people their sins,  befriended the poor,  welcomed children,  even fed a huge crowd  from a couple fish and a few hunks of bread.  Just  wonderful.  

People wondered,  maybe this is it, what we’ve been waiting for: the kingdom of God. The Messiah. Onward and upward. And suddenly,  Jesus says. “It’s all going to be different from now on.  I’m going to Jerusalem – to suffer,  and die.” (Now, we see  that there was something too  about rising in three days.  But  that went right over their heads. What they heard  was:  “be killed.”

They are at the crossroads now.  Galilee is behind them.  Jerusalem is ahead.  Jesus begins to teach them  sobering things – all familiar, all similar, all disturbing – you know these teachings:

• “If an want to be my followers, let them deny themselves  and take up their cross  and follow me.”
• “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
• “For what does it profit them  to gain the whole world,  and forfeit their life?”

No qualifications.  No ifs, ands or buts. And, he adds,  “I’m heading down that road – to Jerusalem.  You can come too.  If you want.”

It’s the crossroads,  the decision point  between  learning about discipleship  and  being a disciple,  between talking the talk  and walking the walk. No one  goes to Jerusalem  easily.

* * * *

I once led a group of church people to the Holy Land – it was in the  mid-1990s – during the intifada.  There were suicide bombings in Jerusalem.  A few people  who’d signed up  decided not to go.  We who did  began  in Galilee. And for four wonderful days, we visited he locations of Jesus’ initial ministry. We walked along the seashore, were out on the lake, went to Nazareth, Capernaum, Cana.  We actually forgot about the conflict.  But, on our last morning,  before we got on the bus to Jerusalem,  our guide got us together in an empty restaurant in the basement of our Tiberius hotel  to talk about  safety and security. It was sobering. We were heading to a city  where convictions  still clashed  violently – to which , twenty centuries before,  Jesus had led his followers, and put it on the line.  The parallels  were striking.

Do you know what Galilee is?  Galilee is the land of retreats, seminars, inspiration and spiritual growth.  Galilee is the land of small, intimate study groups, where you get personal support  as you talk about the faith you share.

And there’s nothing wrong  with Galilee.  It’s  just  not  Jerusalem.  Jerusalem is where you are asked to give up the familiar and pleasant  in order to be true  to the highest you know.  Jerusalem is where you have to carry  a cross  you didn’t ask for.

I’m sure  Jesus  loved Galilee.  I don’t expect Jesus  wanted to leave Galilee,  all the adulation and encouragement, the crowds.  It was wonderful.  It would have been crazy  for him to want to leave it.  Which was Peter’s point.

He left Galilee, not because he wanted to, but because  God  wanted him to.  Because it was time.  God’s time.  That’s why he left. He couldn’t get around it; he couldn’t avoid it.  He gave up his life  for something greater than his life,  denied himself,  took up his cross – and triumphed.

* * * *

I remember a cartoon, with somebody praying,  “Can’t you use me, Lord,  in some  advisory capacity?  But Jesus  doesn’t ask for my advise. I may even have  good advice. What Jesus asks me for  is my life.  We  much prefer Galilee,  where it is comfortable, and agreeable.

But once in a while,  there is a crossroads. Something unavoidable emerges. Something that has  risk in it, or fear in it, or grief in it.  Something haunts you, confronts you. Something clearly beyond your known capacities. What will you do?  We are all  amateurs  here.

And you’re almost afraid to ask,  Which way would he go?  Because we know  which way he would go.  He’d go to Jerusalem, and face the hardship, and do the thing  that has to be done.  So what he asks of us, when we are in that place,  with a choice  between  the benefits of this world  and  following him – he asks  that we follow him, no matter the cost.  It’s that simple.

* * * *

This is nearly inconceivable to us. But there are  normal, everyday people  who have found themselves in situations  where more is required of them  than they know how to give – people who had  every reason to say, “I can’t do this” – but they said Yes,  and found that it’s true:  you can  lose your life, as you have known it,  and gain  a new one.

Georgene Johnson  was 42  when she began to sense a mid-life crisis coming on.  She decided to take up running.  And she got good at it.  She loved  the way she was getting into shape.  So she decided to try a little competition.  She entered Cleveland, Ohio’s annual 10K, a six mile race.

She arrived early on the day of the race. She was nervous.  Lots of people milling around, stretching.  So she did it too, imitated them. The gun sounded  and they were off.  After four miles  she wondered,  When is the course going to double back?  She asked an official, who told her  she was running  the marathon.  Twenty-six miles. The 10K  started  a half hour later.

Some of us would have dropped out right there.  Stopped  and headed back to Galilee.  To her credit,  Georgene Johnson kept going,  even though she complained  to the officials  all the way.  But she kept running. And, to herself,  she said this:  “This isn’t the race I trained for, and this isn’t the race that I entered.  But, for better or worse,  this is the race I am in.”

Maybe, it will be something like that. One day, you discover,  I’m on the road to Jerusalem.  I didn’t ask for this.  I don’t want it.  This isn’t the race I entered.  But I’m  in it.  Almost  as if  I was placed there,  almost as if  someone  entered me  in this.  

And the word is,  Keep going, don’t go back. Do your best. You may not have realized it,  but this  is  the race  you have been training for.

​                      
- With thanks to Carlyle Marney, Peter Miano and Mark Trotter