Tag: Mark

Trinity 8: Back to Langley

WNG268489 Great crowds followed Jesus as he preached the Good News, 2004 (w/c on paper) by Wang, Elizabeth (Contemporary Artist); watercolour on paper; 36×26 cm; Private Collection; © Radiant Light; English, in copyright

St Mary’s Langley

21/7/24
Trinity 8

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-24; 53-56

It is a pleasure to be with you this morning. I was the curate in Langley from 2016 to the end of 2020. Where did that time go?! I went from here to the Hambleden Valley for almost three years and have now settled into Surrey. Last October I took up the posts as the Lead Chaplain of Gatwick Airport and House-for-Duty Priest-in-Charge of two small parishes close to the airport.

I love being the Lead Chaplain of Gatwick. No day is ever the same, sometimes the pace is crazy and the hours long. I meet people coming and going from all over the world but I spend most of my working time with staff members from across the airport.

These are often people in need of rest; many work shift patterns that are unsociable, or work in teams that can be pressurised and challenging especially over the last few days. Airports are hot and noisy places with huge attention for health and safety. Then there are all the joys and sorrows of life outside of work. This is also the work situation for many people beyond airports; we all have to contend with physical, mental, social and spiritual exhaustion.

In all the chaos and hecticness of life we have forgotten to rest. Can you remember the last time you had a proper rest? Not just a break or a day off but the ‘leads me beside still waters and restores my soul’ kind of rest? Psalm 23 is incidentally the set psalm for today.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;

he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

For thousands of years, the need for rest has been acknowledged because it has been ignored. We ignore it today too. There is a lot of work to rest; it takes planning and organising. Sometimes we might even think it is not worth the fuss and then do no bother.

In the opening chapters of Mark’s Gospel we are presented with a very busy Jesus. Mark sets a tone and pace for his readers that is frenetic and fast. Jesus bursts onto the scene, going from one place, one person to the next, hardly stopping to catch his breath. Mark’s account keeps Jesus and the disciples in Galilee as Jesus preaches, teaches and heals the masses whilst spending time teaching the disciples.

The side of Jesus that we are presented with today is one who recognizes, honours and tends to his own tiredness. Jesus also responds to the tiredness and exhaustion of his disciples with care and compassion. Why is everyone so exhausted?

Chapter 6 begins with Jesus in Nazareth where he grew up. On this visit Jesus was dishonoured and ended up amazed at their unbelief. Who were the unbelieving? His family, friends and those who had known him since childhood.
Hang on to that for a moment; the people who have known you the longest completely dismiss you and the work you are doing. How draining and disappointing would that be? Jesus was a human being, he felt things: experienced grief and rejection, felt frustration, was disappointed and let down. Emotional exhaustion by any other name.

The disciples have been sent out in pairs with no bread, no bag and no money to cast out demons, anoint the sick and cure them and proclaim that all should repent. They were to start doing what Jesus has been showing and teaching them to do. You can maybe imagine the enthusiasm they set out with! They started off full of energy and enthusiasm and have likely returned shattered although wanting to tell Jesus all that they had seen and done.

Jesus recognises their tiredness and calls them to come away with him to a deserted place to rest a while. Not sure how long ‘a while’ is but Jesus wants to provide the rest and recuperation for the disciples and himself.

What do we learn about Jesus in this passage? He was gloriously human and full of compassion. In some of the throwaway lines in the Gospels that usually precede the big events we see this humanity: his hunger, his need for sleep and food, his inclination to hide, the need for rest and solitude. Our God rests and it is important for us to know that.

However, the plans for rest and refreshment go temporarily awry. You might have noticed that there is a chunk of Mark 6 being skipped over. A crowd has gathered and grown around Jesus. This is where we see that Jesus is decidedly un-like us; he does not turn away or get upset. Jesus has compassion, He recognise that the needs of the crowd are greater than his own.

Jesus begins to teach them; not only does he teach them, he then feeds them. All 5000 of them! This is a sermon for another day but the feeding of the 5000 by Jesus and the disciples is set in the midst of their exhaustion.

A second attempt is made to get away. Jesus sends the disciples back across the lake in the boat while He went up to the mountain to pray. Jesus then comes back down and walks on the water, across the lake to the boat – again a sermon for another day.

As Jesus and the disciples arrive on the other side of the lake, still searching for the rest that seems to be eluding them. Once again Jesus is recognised, the crowds come, bringing the sick to be healed. Once again Jesus meets them with compassion, they might touch the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Jesus understands need; mine, yours, everyone’s. I ashamedly find it easy sometimes to pass the buck on compassion when I am hungry or tired or needing some solitude. It is tempting to declare early that it does not all depend on me. I’m not the last stop – am I?

I think one of the big lessons this week is the tension between compassion and self-protection. Jesus lived with it too and that is good to know.

The second lesson is that the crowds recognised Jesus as he was growing in popularity. People were coming to him for healing and miracles, demanding signs.

As Lucas is brought to baptism this morning, our prayer is that he grows up being able to recognise Jesus in his life. Parents, Shaun & Janine and godparent Chris – this is your job! You are going to shortly make some promises on behalf of Lucas to God. You are committing yourselves to teaching him about Jesus and his life and works, to pray for him and help him make decisions for himself as he grows up.

You are also going to set Lucas a good example in his life and this will include being compassionate to others as well as himself.

Jesus lived a busy, frenetic life. His humanity shows in his need for food, sleep and time away as does our humanness. Jesus and the apostles shared common human emotions of grief, mourning and great excitement that we too experience. Jesus’ divinity shows his unlimited compassion for those in need and the ability to tend to them as the Good Shepherd. Let him lead you to still waters and restore your soul.

Trinity 5: Work in the Wait

30/6/24
Trinity 5

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43


I wonder if any of these sound familiar or resonate with you…

Time waits for no man

Don’t wait for the right opportunity; create it (George Bernard Shaw)

Don’t wait for change. You change. (Earl Nightingale)


Never wait for tomorrow, what if tomorrow never comes? (Elvis Presley)

Lord, help me to live this day, quietly, easily. To lean upon Thy great strength, trustfully, restfully. To wait for the unfolding of Thy will, patiently, serenely. To meet others, peacefully, joyously. To face tomorrow, confidently, courageously. (St Francis of Assisi)

There is always work in the wait (Beth Moore)

The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it. (John C. Maxwell)

We will all know what it is to wait. Wait for life, for death, for events, for surprises, for results, for people to arrive and depart, babies to be born. There is an art to waiting well. In the Gospel readings this morning we see experiences of people who are waiting in grief and sickness; probably the hardest times of waiting. We see the consequences in the story of David & Saul in 2 Samuel of what happens when impatience takes over.

The book of 2nd Samuel opens with a lament. Saul, Israel’s first king, had fallen out of God’s favour and was to be replaced by David, the shepherd boy and slayer of Goliath. Saul’s reign is decreasing and David’s popularity and success in battle is increasing. Saul is quickly losing his mind as he starts chasing David and his men rather than the enemies of Israel. Saul’s disobedience and bad decisions are weighing heavily.

Samuel had died by this point and all of Israel is mourning his death. Samuel was a man of national importance, their Winston Churchill as a comparison. Not a perfect man but certainly a wise one. Without Samuel to offer guidance, Saul is afraid and troubled. The Philistines are assembling against Israel. Saul, rightfully enquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him neither in dreams or by a prophet. This was one of those times where you think ‘really God? Where are you?!’

We do not know how long Saul waited for. Sometimes we have to wait on God. Or maybe God is waiting for us. Out of fear and insecurity Saul goes undercover to visit the witch of Endor. He had previously expelled all the mediums and wizards from the land which pleased God. The witch asks him who he wants called up from the dead. Saul wants Samuel!

Samuel is disturbed from his sleep of death and is none too happy about this! Saul admits that he is distressed by Philistines and God’s seeming lack of reply; so he has come to Samuel to tell him what to do.

Big mistake! Samuel tells Saul that this time tomorrow he and his sons will be with Samuel; that is dead! They are going to die in battle and the Philistines are going to take control of Israel’s army.

Waiting on God is a very important activity. We need to wait well and in obedience. It is not always easy, it can be frustrating especially if we think that God is ignoring us or has somehow become deaf to our prayers and pleas. We are not to turn to other mediums such as horoscopes, star signs, tea leaves or tarot cards etc. No!

Waiting well is to seek wise and trusted counsel from fellow Christians, spend time thinking and less time acting. We can ponder if the outcome would have been different had Saul faced his fears and waited longer for God to respond. Instead, Saul and his son Jonathan are dead. Jonathan is killed by the Philistines and Saul was badly wounded and had to fall on his own sword to end his life. Not a glorious ending for a king. David starts his reign by mourning the loss of his best friend Jonathan and of Saul even though he had been so awful to him.

Waiting is a major theme in the New Testament. I think we under-appreciate the periods of waiting that people had to do. The lengths of time that people had to wait are often throw-away lines; an aside to the main theme of the story.

Jesus is still around the lake on the particular day when he was confronted by the health issues of two females. One young and one older. The younger from an important family with care and support. The older is an unclean outcast and alone on the bottom rung. The younger with immediately life-threatening problems and the older with the misery of a long-term condition. Both wait with varying levels of hope and expectation.

These two also wait in fear. Jairus fears that his daughter will die. This is likely a new fear. The woman waits in fear that she will never be cured, never get better. This is a fear that has been going on for many years. Twelve years, think back to 2012. What were you doing? Do you have problems now that you did then? The women had been haemorrhaging for 12 years with some form of endometriosis or other menstrual problems.

Jesus goes with Jairus without hesitation when asked to come and lay hands on her. The woman is behind the crowd which gives her the opportunity to touch his clothes with the belief that she will be made well. What would it be like to have that much faith? Not even an appointment with the GP, just passing by his office.

Jesus stops and wants to know who touched him. Jesus stopped and waited. We do not know how long for. Imagine Jairus for a moment, what do you think his thoughts are right now? He is afraid that his daughter will die! He has got Jesus to come to his house, they are on the way and now are being held up by an unclean woman of the lower classes.

Jesus has no hesitation in healing her. What the Jews and probably even Jairus saw as unclean, Jesus sees as someone worth saving. Jesus waits until she comes forward and tells the truth. Jesus tells her that her faith made her well; go in peace and be healed. Imagine her fear in this moment after so long of being ignored and avoided.

Then the news that Jairus’ daughter has died. It could be that she died before the woman stopped Jesus. Imagine Jairus’ thinking now. ‘Ah! Maybe if this Jesus had not waited then his daughter would be alive! What if!’

Jesus carries on and goes to Jairus’ house. ‘Do not fear, only believe,’ says Jesus. The disciples and Jairus have just witnessed an example in the woman in what it is to only believe. After 12 years of waiting for things to get better, she heard about Jesus and had enough faith (probably not much) to believe.

Jesus could have healed the daughter from afar as he did on other occasions in the New Testament. He did not need to have made Jairus wait. Maybe Jairus needed to wait. To believe. To believe that Jesus had power but also that all people have worth to God. Maybe the woman needed to have her waiting come to an end at that moment. Jesus is not slow as we understand slowness. Maybe we need to learn from our waiting too.

How are we waiting? What are we waiting for today? I hope that we will not rush off to consult the mediums and star signs when we are waiting for answers like Saul did. Jesus made Jairus wait so he could tend to the woman who had been waiting for 12 years.God is always waiting for us. To believe, to be ready for what he has planned for us.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Jesus says. God’s love is not that small. There is enough for the bleeding woman and the dying daughter. There is enough for all. We will be loved in our waiting and we might even be healed.

Trinity 3: Consequences & Moving Forward

An acrylic painting on wood illustrating the bible verse in Mark 4 describing the kingdom of God like a mustard seed. Jesus is seated with a child under the yellow-leafed branches of a tree showing her a tiny mustard seed. Jen Norton.

16/6/24
Trinity 3

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
Mark 4:26-34

If you can cast your minds back to last weeks or even better – read the readings for this week, we will continue to look at leadership and politics in the Old & New Testaments. Tis the season! Things have moved on for Samuel and Jesus.

We are a few chapters ahead in 1 Samuel. Israel’s first king Saul was anointed, it was a complete disaster as predicted and ended badly. Saul died by suicide and all his sons were killed by enemies. Saul was almost constantly at war and profited greatly from the plundering of his enemies. God had warned the Israelites what would happen; and it all came to pass in Saul’s kingship.

It was so bad that 1 Samuel 15:34 says “the Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.” Think about God’s sadness for a moment. God was sad. Sad that the people disobeyed him, turned away from the plans and purposes he had. I suspect he was sad over Saul’s awful death and the deaths of his sons. Sad about the loss of life. There are events and people in this world that make God sad.

As a king, Saul was the ideal candidate. He was handsome, from the right family as he had a wealthy father. You know what he did at his coronation? Saul hid! Samuel the prophet had to go and find him to present him to his people. Imagine King Charles running out of Westminster Abbey! Saul tried at the beginning. He was given two jobs: reign over the people of Israel and save them from their enemies. Yet Saul acts out of turn, does not obey God, makes his own decisions. God would have established Saul’s kingdom forever but does not in the end. We pick up the reading this morning where God has finally had enough; He is sorry that he made Saul king over Israel. Samuel and Saul part company too.

The whole of the OT is the story of a people who messed up and the God who loved them anyway. Part of the problem with the Israelites is that they keep worshipping other gods along with God. They make some decisions that they did not consult big G God on and they are punished. Samuel pleads with Israel to return to God with all their hearts and put away the foreign gods and God will deliver them from the Philistines. The Philistines are one of the biggest and most troubling enemies of Israel. Goliath was one of them.

If we are feeling frustrated at the state of this country or community, Israel provides an excellent example of what it is to get what it wants and then realise it isn’t that great. The story would have been totally different if Israel had sought out what God wanted for them.

How often do we do that in our own lives? Demand things of God, want him to do things our way? Sometimes he will give us what we want and we learn the hard way! God wants our obedience, we are to listen and follow him. Not the other way around.

In the end God will get his way. It is a new day for Samuel at the start of chapter 16. He is to put Saul and the past behind him so that he can anoint the next king, one of the sons of Jesse. David. The ruddy faced and beautiful boy.

We do well to remember that God does not look at outward appearances, but on the heart. It is jarring to think that God can be sad. I do not want to be the cause of God’s sadness nor be part of a country or community that makes God sad.

Mark – Jesus is still going strong. He remained in Galilee where he appointed his 12 apostles who were sent out to proclaim the good news. The crowds are growing as more and more people come to listen. Jesus begins teaching in parables about the kingdom of God. He uses analogies of the seed and sower, lamps under bushel baskets, more scattered seed and the mustard seed.

Why these things? Lamps and mustard seeds represent everyday miracles. We all know how they work. The kingdom of God is in the everyday stuff of life. This is drastically different from the kingdom of military power that many people thought Jesus would bring including the disciples.

Jesus is saying no. This Kingdom of God starts small and grows large; much larger than we can ever imagine. Once a mustard seed starts growing they need very little care and not much water. And they grow! They spread quickly, not exactly something you want in a well-tended English garden! Mustard seeds have small beginnings and also make a delicious mustard. The greatest of all condiments!

The kingdom of God starts small and grows as it spreads out and changes the flavour of the world around it.

As a church and I mean as a parish, we need to spread out and change the flavour of the world, the village and our families around us. Church is not contained to these four walls, this hour on a Sunday and only the people sitting here. Lord help us if that ever becomes our view of His church!

What we do as a church may feel small but it will grow like a mustard seed if we let it. If we choose to learn from the example in Israel as Samuel pleaded with them to serve God and follow him. If we focus more on our hearts, and the hearts of others and not on outside appearances – then we live in obedience and it will be well.

Trinity 2: Politics Matter!

1 Samuel 8:4-11,16-20
Mark 3:20-35

This last week has been politically fascinating; has it not? There have been elections in a number of countries around the world, the D-Day commemorations in the UK and France, the political debates in this country. You might not be interested and/or avoid the news right now. Regardless of feelings and even opinion; politics and particularly leadership matters very much to everyone.

The readings from 1 Samuel and Mark show us leadership from God’s perspective and the difficulty Jesus faced from his own family. Leadership is not an easy road to travel; never has been and likely never will.

I like the Old Testament. A lot. I am by no means an expert, it does take some time and energy to get one’s head around it and when you do there is beauty and story to be discovered. If I had to nut shell the Old Testament it is this: it is a story of a people who messed up and the God who loved them anyway. These people, Israel, had been chosen by God to be his people (unsure why them). As the ‘chosen ones’ they had to follow some rules; the Chema (love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself. Super easy!) Israel had to care for the neighbours, the widows and orphans and above love God.

Yet, they could not/would not do it. They focused on what they did not have, they worshipped other gods, nothing was quite good enough, they wanted what the neighbours had. Does any of this sound vaguely familiar?

In 1 Samuel, this all comes to a head as Israel demands a human king to look after them. Just like all the neighbours had. The Israelites thought this was a better option than obeying God. At this point, Samuel was an old man whose sons had chosen their own paths, disregarding their faith. Samuel would not be leading them for much longer.

Israel has reached a critical moment in their history, two ways to go here. The way of God or the way of themselves. This is the choice that every nation, people and we individuals still have.

Samuel gets a warning from God which he passes on about how awful the ways of a human king are going to be. A human king will turn their sons into war labourers, daughters will be put to work; he will take the best of their flocks, fields and vineyards for his friends, and then a 10% cut on top of that for his own personal use. This is grossly unfair.

However, the people will not listen and continue their demands, they are actively rejecting God for their own agenda. God’s response, despite the warning, is to give the people what they want. There are consequences, the Lord will not answer when they cry out because of the king. God did not do this because he is uncaring or gave up on his chosen people. He wanted to show them that His way is the better one, following him leads to life and not death.

If God is not at the centre of life and we choose to go our own way, there are consequences. It is foolish to think that free will comes without responsibilities.

Stay tuned as the first human king of Israel will be appointed in next week’s edition!

Mark’s Gospel

We are now in the early days of Jesus’ ministry and things are hotting up. Jesus is travelling, healing, teaching and gaining attention. He is quickly becoming a threat and irritant to the religious establishment by healing people on the Sabbath and declaring forgiveness of sins. This attention is likely causing some pressure on his family.

We do not know very much about Jesus’ family life. There are two incidents in Mark 3 that would indicate Jesus’ family life was not easy! His family certainly does not come across well. Mary and the brothers go to restrain him as public opinion was that ‘he had gone out of his mind’. Some of us may know what it is to have awkward/difficult/odd family members.

However, what Jesus is saying is lucid and makes sense. Jesus is pushing the disciples and the religious to look not just at the theory of God but the reality of God.

Everything Jesus was doing was good.

Everywhere Jesus went people were being restored to God, evil and sickness were banished, demons were exercised. The root of the problem was that the power Jesus was displaying could only come from two sources: God or the devil.

Jesus is not only proclaiming the word of God but performs it in action. If we read God’s word, then we should be able to see it in action. Evil simply cannot work against itself. His pushing was making his family and the religious leaders uncomfortable. His family was risking a bad reputation. The religious leaders could lose control of the population and they were willing to lie and deny the consequences of what Jesus was saying and doing was true.

We should be able to see the politics in action. The demands of the Israelites for a human king and rejection of God. The denial of what Jesus was teaching by those who were close to him and the false accusations by the establishment.

What can we do? How can we navigate the politics of the coming weeks and months? My suggestion is to put Jesus at the centre; read and listen to his word. Consider it in light of what we read or watch.

How do we keep God at the centre as a parish and as His beloved children? From the examples of 1 Samuel; choose God’s kingship over that of other imperfect and fallible humans. Care less about what the neighbours have and what you do not. God is faithful and he will give us what we ask for sometimes; be careful of what you are demanding and why. You just might get it!

From Mark, look to the love and goodness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Living a God-centred life is not always easy. The temptation to lie and deny can be strong at times. Fixating on what other people think has a powerful influence on us; tuning it out to follow truth and conscience is never easy.

Good and saintly people of Charlwood and Sidlow Bridge, we will face consequences if we do not stay together. We cannot become divided over politics, opinion, preferences and all the myriad of things that can cause difficulties in churches.

We need to be united with God and with each. With God at the centre of our lives and churches there is a bright and hopeful future ahead of us.

Lent 2: Pick it up!

25/2/24

Psalm 22:23-end
Romans 4:13-end
Mark 8:31-38

This morning’s gospel reading is at the centre point of Mark. You may have noticed that it contains some of Jesus’ most well-known sayings. Many of these sayings often come up independently of each other in modern usage; here we have them all together in a few verses of Mark. ‘Get behind me Satan!’; ‘Take up your cross and follow me’; ‘What is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul?’. There is often great temptation to take these verses out of context and apply to any situation we find ourselves in. Much like taking Churchill quotes or lines of Shakespeare and reducing them to coffee mugs and tea towels.

These are not flippant comments; nor are they meant as a joke or a throw away from Jesus. To fully appreciate what is being said, we need to look to the start of Mark 8. Jesus and the disciples are teaching to large crowds who are tracking them. He is feeding them with the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. The Pharisees are looking for a fight with their constant testing. Jesus is healing the blind. The disciples are seemingly slow to grasp what is going on. You can, with some attention, feel the pressure building.

Jesus is surrounded by people who are questioning who he is and in whose authority he is teaching, preaching and healing. So he asks a fairly generic question: ‘who do people say that I am?’ To which he is given a range of answers, the local gossip as it were. John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the Prophets. Jesus then turns to a more pointed and direct question of ‘But who do YOU say that I am?’ No more hiding behind the answers of others!

Now I don’t think Jesus was struggling particularly with his identity but wanted to see if the disciples were clear about it. Who do you say Jesus is? If someone asked you, what answer would you give? Do you have one?

Jesus knew his time on earth was getting short. He was trying to prepare his disciples for what was to come; they needed to understand what the Messiah meant. As Jews they would have had ideas and expectations of the coming Messiah. They had been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to come! However, Jesus is not and never was going to be the Messiah they had imagined.
With some irony, the place Caesarea Philippi (in modern day northern Israel), was a place where Jewish groups expected the arrival of the age to come. It was no accident that Jesus chose this place to have this conversation. Jesus the Messiah, the start of the new age is in the place where some Jewish people expected the arrival of the age to come. This is exciting news; Peter is so moved that he declares that Jesus is the Messiah.

Great!
And then… Jesus drops a bombshell. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering,” Jesus tells his disciples quite plainly. He must “be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” The context that Jesus is teaching into was his death; this is the first time that Jesus predicts his death.

Standing on this side of resurrection history, we easily miss the utter shock these words had on Jesus’s disciples. Their great hope, cultivated over the three years they had followed Jesus, was dashed. Jesus was supposed to lead them in a military revolution and overthrow their Roman oppressors and restore Israel to former greatness. What then could be more disorienting, more ludicrous, than the news that their would-be champion was going to walk without a fight to certain death? An embarrassing death at that.

Peter, in a moment of confusion and shock, scolds Jesus for his dire prediction. Jesus, in what might be the sharpest and most surprising rebuke in all of Scripture, puts Peter in his place with one swift stroke: “Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

You can hardly blame Peter, how often are our minds on human things rather than the divine? Holy living requires higher thoughts, and this takes some practice. It is easier to think holy thoughts when all is well. Much more difficult to do when faced with death, threats to security and uncertainty.

Then Jesus turns to the crowds and captures the essence of his message in two sentences: “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.“

Even now, centuries removed from the context in which Jesus lived and taught, what exactly is Jesus saying? That he wants us to pursue suffering and death? That a holy life is not about living at all, but about dying? About martyrdom?
What does a holy life look like in 21st century England? Living, as we do, in a culture that does not imprison, torture, or kill Christians for our faith, how shall I deny myself so that the gospel might thrive, here and now? How shall I save my life by losing it for Jesus’s sake in the village of Charlwood or Sidlow Bridge?

‘If any want to become my followers’ would imply there is a choice to be made. Jesus is speaking to a crowd, lots of people watching and listening. The use of if suggests that not everyone decided then and there become followers of Jesus. It is not easy and no promise of an easy, pain-free, suffering avoidant life is ever offered.

‘Let them deny themselves’. This is not the body and I am not living the life of a person who denies herself very much! I am not always good at living beyond my own convenience. What would it look like to deny ourselves those things that prevent us from living a life that follows totally after Jesus?

‘And take up their cross and follow me.’ We use it as a throw-away; ‘we all have our crosses to bear’ to explain or give meaning to the circumstances of another. There are always lots of people to stand and watch others do the heavy lifting. These are the ones who think they are saving their lives by not getting involved, or staying quiet or think that all religions, God, etc. are the same and get you there in the end, just be good or a nice person. The reality is though that lives will be lost. We all have situations, issues, stuff going on that needs bearing up; we cannot ignore, dismiss or wish it away. Pick it up!

If we pick our crosses up to follow Jesus we are not going to have to carry it by ourselves. In Matthew 11 Jesus says, ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Who can we look to for a holy life? We see an example in Abraham. All that Abraham was promised came through his righteousness and God’s faithfulness. Abraham’s great age is not to be overlooked. It took a lifetime of practice, of discipline, repentance and growth. It was certainly not an easy life, but it was worth it in the end. I think that one of the best examples in recent history is Billy Graham. Billy Graham died in February 2018, at the grand age of 99 and in his own home. He is a shining example of what it is to live a holy life of faithful service to Jesus until the end. Carrying your cross daily and faithfully. Giving up your life, your convenience for others.

We probably will not influence millions of people around the world and that is okay. How about we influence those around us in our homes, families, villages, our workplaces, schools, the stranger on the train or in the coffee shop.
Billy Graham lived a scandal free life both financially and sexually. Is that not refreshing given what is being reported in the news almost daily? Money, sex, pride and power have a death grip on so many people.

Mark is presenting us with Jesus’ idea of what real life looks like; a ‘real life’, a holy life that does not have space for the misuse and abuse of money, sex, pride and power. Mark ends this passage by making it clear that following Jesus seems the only way to go. There is some good news: the crosses that we must bear are so much lighter than the cross that Jesus had to bear.

What is the reward? From Billy Graham: “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”

In the presence of God who loves us deeply, gave up everything so we can be with him, who repays us with a life spent in eternity. By losing and denying we gain much more.

Blessed are those who carry
for they shall be lifted.