THE WAY OF THE CROSS
Prayer: O faithful Savior, of Your infinite love You condescended to walk the way of the cross and to atone for the sin of all mankind: We humbly ask You to give us grace to remember always in true faith what You have done for us; and to give us willingness and strength to follow You on the way that leads through the thorns of sufferings and grief to eternal happiness; You, who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (The Lutheran Liturgy, companion altar book for TLH)
The Text, St. John 8:46-59 (v. 58-59). Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him.
Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Help us to believe that Your blood cleanses us from all sin. Amen.
In the name of Jesus, the great I Am, dear people loved by God: Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In a way this is Jesus’ pre-trial hearing. We’ve come into the middle of a contentious scene. We begin in verse 46 of John 8.
At the beginning of this confrontation, back in verse 13, we see that Jesus was speaking with the Pharisees. They are the ones who will condemn Jesus in a late-night trial and bring Him to Pontius Pilate, and will stir up the mob to yell, “Crucify Him!” This is 6 months before that, but it’s a preview of it, taking place on the temple grounds. The Pharisees come and question Jesus, making accusations: “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.”
What do you think of this back-and-forth? If we read it as a contest, we want Jesus to “win.” It’s a verbal contest and nobody flinches or gives in. Earlier in the chapter Jesus says to their face, “You are seeking to kill Me,” and they don’t even deny it! He calls them children of the devil. He challenges anyone to charge Him with a sin. They say things like “don’t we say rightly that You have a demon?” and “now we know that You have a demon.” It sounds like they’re trading their best verbal punches.
We want this to end triumphantly, for Jesus to silence them once and for all, leave everyone in awe. Perhaps that is how we hear His closing words, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” There! You go, Jesus! You tell ’em! We might interpret their attempt to stone Him at that point as a kind of victory. They can’t out-argue Him so they’ll try that.
Only Jesus doesn’t view it as a victory. He does not want anyone to die in their sins. He isn’t there to win the argument. That isn’t how He wins. At the end, “they took up stones to throw at Him,” and what did Jesus do? He just “went out of the temple,” out of His Father’s house. “He hid Himself.” Although we love His “Before Abraham was, I AM,” it really looks like Jesus loses. How can that be? It makes Christ, our God, look weak.
What we’re seeing here is the way of the cross. That phrase isn’t actually referring to Jesus going to the cross. Instead, “the way of the cross” or the theology of the cross says that God comes to us through weakness and suffering, and it applies to our own sufferings and weakness. It’s contrasted with the theology of glory, which is a way of thinking that says that God is not to be found in weakness and suffering, but rather in power and strength; it looks for God and His favor in signs of success and outward victory.
In other words, the way of the cross is the way that looks like defeat and weakness, and the way of glory is the way that looks like success.
This is the subtle temptation for us as individual Christians, and as the Church. It’s to imagine a glorious kingdom or a glorious church – or a glorious life or faith for yourself – without a cross, without weakness, without suffering – that you can figure out a way to have success without struggle.
One effective way the devil really gets after us is through discouragement and disappointment. You aren’t the Christian you want to be. Your life isn’t going like you want it to. Everything seems to be failing. Everything seems to be going against you. Then you might conclude that God doesn’t care, that God is far away, or you say, “Why are You doing this, Lord?” But that’s the sinful mind talking, that’s way-of-glory thinking, that is looking for outward signs of victory and success, in order to know that all is good. God is not farther away in times of trouble; He’s actually closer, and hiding Himself under weakness. That’s what we see from Jesus here.
There’s something in us that wants faith to be easy, that assumes it should be all upward progress. We apply this to the church too. We can be impatient and think we can manufacture success. In America we worship success. But America is not the church; and making the nation successful, or building successful companies, involve methods that – if applied to the church – could destroy a church by taking it farther away from Jesus and His Word. We need to remember that the devil attacks the Church, and especially attacks the church that’s being faithful to the Lord and His Word. So it’s when things are feeling difficult, even in the Church, that we should know Christ is near.
Jesus had to rebuke His disciples more than once about faulty thinking in this area, when they rejected the way of the cross and desired ease and glory. He rebuked Peter – called him “Satan” – for trying to dissuade Him from His road to the cross. He rebuked James and John for desiring glorious positions. In Gethsemane He rebuked Peter for trying to save Him from suffering through a show of strength and force, by the use of the sword. But here in His speech with the unbelieving Jews, Jesus models the way of the cross.
Jesus said: “I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges.” Jesus placed His trust in the Father. He knows He has the favor of the Father; He isn’t worried. He knows that although they judge Him, and reject Him, He isn’t rejected by the One who matters most, His Father. And as He does this, Jesus is doing it not for Himself but for you, for His Church.
In being cast out of the temple – and not fighting it – Jesus became the rejected one. He did this (1) so that you will not be rejected eternally, but will be accepted by God and received into heavenly mansions; and (2) so that you won’t fear rejection from anyone, but will be secure and confident in God’s favor, a confidence that includes great joy.
We think about the first part: that Jesus became the rejected one so you will not be rejected by God for your sins. When they took up stones they wanted to kill Jesus there on the spot – but on Good Friday they actually would be allowed to kill Him, He would not hide or defend Himself, He would let them nail Him to the cross. He wasn’t just being rejected by men. On the cross, in the unnatural darkness at noon, He would be rejected by God; Jesus would cry out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Then He would truly be cast out from God’s face and experience the terrors of hell. Christ came down from heaven to be rejected, not only by men but also on the cross by His Father. He did this willingly, to die alone and forsaken.
The men in this story want Jesus to die because (they say) He is not God. But He will die precisely because He is God, because this is the divine plan of salvation, because the Son of Man goes as it is determined for Him, because no one takes His life from Him but He lays it down Himself, which includes being rejected by God as punishment for all the sins of the world laid on Him.
We’re thankful that He did this for us. We’re thankful that Jesus went the way of the cross. But this leads us to the second point: that He did this not only to make you acceptable to God, but to give you joy and confidence, to be secure, so that you’ll reject the way of glory and walk the way of the cross.
The true victory is not that He makes everything easy for you in life. The true victory is that you live with this confidence that you are not rejected, no matter what you experience or how it feels; and that you rejoice in your sufferings, as He calls you to do – not rejoicing because you are suffering, but rejoicing because it draws you closer to Christ. Jesus commends this joy to you in His words to the Jews: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”This joy comes in walking by faith, not by sight.
This is what we do as Christians and as His Church. We learn from Christ not to equate outward prosperity and success with God’s favor. We learn from the cross – and at the cross – and by Jesus’ rejection here in John 8, that we are never rejected or defeated, and that any apparent weakness or any suffering that we experience is the way to partaking in Christ’s victory. As Jesus was most in His glory while being rejected and killed, we partake in His glory as we share this with Him in our crosses and sufferings. This is why we have such great joy as Christians. It’s a joy only known by faith.
It is true that in our crosses, trials and sufferings, you can feel a kind of rejection. But it’s a rejection of the old Adam. It’s a rejection of our self will. And in this we join Jesus, the Rejected One, who makes us accepted by God. He came to take your place as the rejected one. So that you are accepted in Him. Accepted by God Himself. He was cast out so you never would be. You are always on the inside of His kingdom, safe, loved, surrounded by those who love you best, the saints, the angels, but most importantly God Himself, the Great I Am, Christ whose Word is true.
Where we see this most clearly is in the Lord’s Supper. In the height of His being rejected by men, they crucified His body and shed His blood; and now that very body and blood are given to you to eat and drink, not only for the forgiveness of sins, but to make you One with Him. When you come to the Lord’s Supper you come saying, “I am weak,” and as you receive into your mouth, with a believing heart, His body given for you, His blood shed for you, it makes you strong – stronger in your faith, and stronger in your love. This is where, as His Church, we are one body and stronger together.
It is never true that you are rejected, that you are a loser, that you’re losing ground. Those are lies from the devil. Instead as His Christians and His Church, we are always standing on ground He has won. In Him you cannot be moved. He shields you with His grace. This is how He wins. By the patient way of the cross, in which He gives you His patience. Amen!