Mark 8:34-35
March 1, 2009
Sermon preached at the Service of Installation of Rev. Peter Lee at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Our natural inclination is to be first in line. We don’t want to miss out on what is being given away free. We would rather be at the head of the line instead of bringing up the rear. We prefer leading rather than following. When we play the childhood game of “Follow the Leader,” we all want our turn to be the leader. To get ahead, the last thing we want to drag behind us is a cross. To become followers, we would need to be taught how to do that.
Jesus says to the multitude with his disciples and teaches them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (8:34). This is not a requirement just for the inner circle of the 12; this is at the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. No wonder Jesus has to teach this to us, for here is an insight that we would never have come to on our own.
Here is a teaching—the Son of God is also the Suffering One, and those who follow Him must also suffer and be crucified and die—that we must be taught. We would not have come up with this on our own. So we gather during this Season of Lent, an appropriate season of the church year to install a new pastor to learn something that we would never know if Jesus had not taught it to us. Those who follow Jesus must deny themselves, take up our crosses, and follow. We lose our lives in the embrace of his life.
Our Crosses
Jesus tells us not only that he is destined for a cross, but that a cross also awaits us in our journey. Jesus not only predicts his “passion,” that is, his suffering, but he also says that suffering is in the plans for us as well. We are also destined to be cross carriers.
Jesus asks ordinary people like you and me to follow him. But one might expect that some of these folk might have reasonably asked Jesus, “Well, who are you and where are we going?”
But they don’t; they just follow. And as they follow, Jesus gradually unpacks for them who he is and where he is headed. Jesus has been feeding, healing, working, and preaching, but he has not said all that much about himself. But now, Jesus sits down and explains who he really is and where he is going.
He surprises his disciples by telling them that he is going to the cross. “God forbid!” says Peter, the chief of the disciples. It’s just impossible to believe that this “Son of God” should be betrayed and suffer and die.
But the surprises keep coming. He tells his disciples that they also must bear a cross because they are his followers. Now, a “cross” here is not something that you bear because you are a human being—a bad health problem, an annoying relative, or a bad boss. The cross that Jesus speaks about is that which results from following him. The cross is the result of walking with Jesus. You can’t walk with Jesus unless you are willing to take up your cross and walk like the way Jesus walked.
At the end of Jesus’ teaching, you might expect Mark to say, “After this teaching, most of the disciples left him, muttering to themselves, ‘I had no idea that Jesus was walking in this direction. I’m out of here.’”
But if any of the disciples left, Mark says nothing about it. They kept walking with Jesus, even though he has been explicit about the difficulty of the way he is walking. They kept up with Jesus, even though he has promised them a cross. These ordinary people are called to walk with him, to do the same things he does, to bear the cross that he bears.
So the good news today in Jesus’ teaching is this: Jesus believes that you are able to be a cross carrier.
Peter Lee
Today we are happy to welcome and install Rev. Peter Lee as our new Pastor of Chinese-speaking Ministries. The cross is not optional equipment for all followers of Jesus and especially a pastor. Peter, I don’t know in all of the boxes that you moved from Hong Kong to San Francisco if you packed in your cross or not. But you will need it serving at FCBC and in San Francisco.
It always amazes me when we perform a pastoral staff search that 8 months ago, we had no idea who was Peter Lee. For that matter, Peter had no idea who we were too.
The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggermann argues that if you are a Christian, the story that tells you who you are is not the story of your parents, ancestors, gender, ethnic group or social class. It is the story of the Bible. This story of vocation, promise, deliverance, and gift is your family history, the story that defines who you are and what is really going on in the world. In short, you are lovingly created for service to the true and living God; you belong to the God of Jesus Christ.
We know Pastor Peter because he shares the same religious story that we share. He may have at one time thought that he should be at the head of the line. But today we know him to have switched his stories. We know Pastor Peter because he carries the same cross that Jesus carried.
When the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci went to China in the 16th century, he brought along samples of religious art to illustrate the Christian story for people who had never heard it. The Chinese readily adopted portraits of the Virgin Mary holding her child, but when he produced paintings of the crucifixion and tried to explain that the God-child had grown up only to be executed, the audience reacted with revulsion and horror. They much preferred the Virgin Mary and insisted on worshiping her rather than the crucified God.
While we have only known of Pastor Peter 8 months ago and that he has only been with us for the past 2 months, we know him because he is a cross carrier. He follows Jesus by walking with Jesus and the result of walking with Jesus is to carry the cross. Pastor Peter knows that when that little child held by Mary grows up, that God-child taught him that if he wants to become Jesus’ follower, he would need to deny himself and carry his cross.
In some churches like the Episcopal Church, they begin their worship service by having usually a young person called the “crucifer” process in with the cross. It’s a sign that tells everyone who comes to worship that this is not a social event, it’s not a reunion, it’s not a town meeting, it’s not a concert. What we do in worship is to be reminded once again that we follow Jesus who suffered on the cross and died there.
Not only Pastor Peter is a cross carrier, Jesus calls his disciples and the multitude of people like you and me to carry the cross too. Jesus believes that you are able to carry the cross. We believe that Pastor Peter Lee was carrying his cross when he served at the Kowloon City Baptist Church in Hong Kong and today he is carrying his cross at FCBC in San Francisco. Pastor Peter was not satisfied or fulfilled just sitting in his comfortable setting listening to Jesus’ teaching, but he got out of his comfort zone to live out Jesus’ teaching by carrying his cross across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco.
The symbol of the cross comes in a variety of ways. Peter, I don’t know what your Hong Kong cross might look like. We have the Jerusalem Cross overhead. We have a simple brass cross in front of the baptistery. For you to be a cross carrier in California, I purchased for you terracotta cross that has red representing the crown of thorns and the nails on Jesus’ hands. But this cross is planted in the bright colors of the West Coast symbolizing the fact that God has called you to serve Jesus Christ here. I pray that you’ll always be faithful in carrying the cross of Jesus.
Does the world know that you are cross carriers? Do they see the cross on our backs, the same as it is placed on Jesus’ back?
Jesus teaches us, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:34-35).
Let us pray.