Video of the Divine Service is here. The sermon begins around the 24:15 mark.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The thing about crosses is that we don’t choose them. They come to us. They are imposed upon us. Other than Jesus, no one chooses his or her cross. We would rather not have to face this particular thing. Like Paul, who asked God three times to remove his thorn from him. He didn’t want it or choose it, but it was given to him. But what makes something the cross? Many people have difficulties; many people have struggles; believers and unbelievers face pain and suffering. Now, of course, those things in themselves are not necessarily the cross.

The cross is not just something hard, or any suffering, or any difficulty. What makes the cross the cross is that the person suffering is bound to Jesus, the crucified one. The cross comes to the one following Jesus. If anyone desires to follow after Me, Jesus says, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow Jesus. Those go together. Taking up a cross does not mean choosing it, as if you went and looked at all the different kinds of burdens or suffering and chose the one you would like. The cross comes because you follow Jesus. The cross may be almost anything. It could be physical, like some ongoing pain or sickness; or a physical limitation or disability. It could be a struggle with your flesh, such as an attraction to someone of the same sex, or an addictive personality, where if you have a little bit of something, you have to have more and more and more. It could be related to your vocation as a parent (or a pastor!), suffering under the responsibilities of what God has given you to do.

Last week we heard that baptism puts a target on our back for the devil; belonging to Jesus makes the devil our enemy. So baptism also gives us the cross. You have been baptized into Jesus’ death, and that is the cross. If it weren’t for baptism into Jesus, you wouldn’t have the cross; it would just be some hard things, or you would make the hard things into easy things by refusing to deny yourself. You would go your own way and choose your own path and do everything you could to avoid difficult and burdensome and painful things. That’s what the sinful flesh does. It sees suffering of all kinds as the ultimate evil, to be avoided at all costs.

But not so with those who follow Jesus. The cross is what presses down on our sinful flesh, what drives us to Him. We were weak, and ungodly, and sinners, which are exactly the sort of people Jesus died for. And because we have been justified by faith in Christ, now we have peace with God, reconciled to Him. And because we stand in the grace of God in Jesus, we rejoice in the hope He has given us. But more than that, Paul says, more than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, which is about as incomprehensible to the world as denying ourselves. We rejoice in our crosses. Not because we want them, or we chose them, or we like them, but because the cross means we belong to Jesus. And if we belong to Jesus, suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces tested character, and character produces hope.

To bear the cross is to endure, to bear up, not because we are so strong and stoic in the face of pain, but because Christ will not let us go. He holds us, and we bear up. He knows our burdens, and He says, Come to Me, you who are burdened and weighed down, and I will give you rest. There is no rest from the cross outside of Christ the crucified. There is no peace in the midst of this world outside Christ the crucified. There is no hope outside Christ the crucified. Endurance in Him produces the tested character. It shows what kind of a person I am. First, weak and sinful, but more than that, one who is baptized and who believes. Not that we’ve been tried and tested and come out good on the other end. We all know our falling under the cross, our failures; the times when we refused to deny ourselves, when we indulged ourselves; when we even denied Christ, rather than follow Him. So what kind of a person I am is determined by what kind of a person I believe in. And Christ suffered all of it. He suffered your falling and failing, your denials of Him and your refusals to deny yourself. He suffered it and He endured it to the end, the faithful Son. He endured, and it showed us what kind of a person He is; that is, it shows us what kind of God we have: a God who takes on flesh and suffers; who acknowledges all the weak and ungodly sinners as His own.

And the sort of God He is produces the sort of people we are, which is believers in Him. And believing Him, crucified and risen, produces hope, and hope will not put us to shame. It will not put us to shame because it is hope in Him, and He is risen from the dead. If you have been baptized into a death like His, you have certainly been baptized into a resurrection like His. Because the cross is not the end; death is not the end. If it is Jesus’ cross, it is death and resurrection. Your baptism is your death and your resurrection. This is the cross He gives to you, so that you do not simply die your death, under the weight of your burdens, your sinful flesh. Instead, you die with Him in His death, which means that you must be raised with Him when He appears. He says to His disciples, “It is necessary that I am rejected and suffer, that I am killed, and that I am raised on the same day.” And it is just as necessary that those who are joined to His cross will be raised.

You do not choose your cross. It comes to you because you have been put in line behind Jesus, to follow Him, to deny yourself and the things of this world. What could you give in exchange for your life? Nothing. But Jesus gives Himself for your life, to be your life. And hope does not put us to shame. He will not be ashamed of you on that last. Do not be ashamed of suffering for His sake, of denying yourself, of following Him. The cross must come. You have been bound to the cross, but it is Jesus’ cross. Which means that resurrection will come. And that hope will not put you to shame.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 2/23/24