Living the Cross
February 25, 2018
Church of the Servant, Wilmington, NC
2nd Sunday in Lent
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
Listen here:
For those interested, here’s a link to Kenny Chesney’s “Noise” – enter at your own risk:
Gospel Text:
Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Source: The Rev. John S. Bunting, The Secret of a Quiet Mind: The Building of the Life Within, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1929: New York, Kessinger Legacy Reprints.
This sermon brings to mind the old hymn, “In the Cross of Christ I glory, Tow’ring o’er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime.” A great focus for Lent. And the rest of the year. Love, Dad