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Mark 8:31-38 A few years ago, there was this really popular phrase out there in Christian circles: WWJD? Anybody remember what that means? What Would Jesus Do? It showed up on bracelets, on notebooks, on t-shirts, all kinds of stuff. The point was that whenever you saw those letters, you were supposed to think twice about what you were doing. Would Jesus cheat on a test? Would Jesus make fun of someone? Would Jesus talk back to his parents? (Well, that one he kind of did, but that’s beside the point.) “What would Jesus do?” seems like a pretty good mantra for life. Well, when I was in seminary, one of my professors used this little phrase to teach me a profound lesson. He got us to thinking about what Jesus really would do. And he pointed to our gospel lesson as his example, because in Mark 8:31-38, perhaps more than in any other passage, Jesus lays out very clearly lays out what exactly he would do. The passage even makes this point where it says, “Jesus said all this quite openly” or quite clearly. Jesus 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. In keeping with the WWJD theme, my professor boiled this down to his own four letters: GSDR. What would Jesus do? He would Go, Suffer, Die, Rise. Go, Suffer, Die, Rise. That’s a little more dramatic and meaningful than simply not making fun of someone. So, I thought we would look at this today because after Jesus lays out exactly what he would do, he turns it to his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” In other words, Jesus’ followers are to do the same thing: Go Suffer Die Rise. It’s passages like this that remind me of a quote by Mark Twain. He once said, “Many people are bothered by those passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.” Today’s lesson for us fits into that category. Go Suffer Die Rise. Pretty clear. Pretty open. Very troubling. Let’s start with “G” and “S”: GO SUFFER. What does it mean to go suffer? In this instance, to go somewhere implies a certain intentionality, a willingness, a deliberate action on behalf of the person going. Jesus did not HAVE to go to Jerusalem to do what he did. No one made him. Had he lived the rest of his life in the countryside, fishing on the beach of the Sea of Galilee, I’m sure he would’ve lived a happy life and to a ripe old age. But that’s not the path he chose. He chose to go to Jerusalem, to face what was waiting for him there. He chose to go and suffer because he knew that that was the only way for him to save the world. It was the only way for him to save you, to save me. And he chose to do it. What a gift. Now, I think a lot of Christians get this “go suffer” part mixed up. When something bad happens to them – they lose their job, they get cancer, they get divorced – I hear people often say, “Well, that’s just your cross to bear.” I disagree. No doubt, those are burdens, but I don’t think they have anything to do with carrying your cross, with going and suffering, because there was no intentionality there. They aren’t willingly choosing that suffering. In other passages of scripture, Jesus has some powerful things to say about sharing burdens, things that do happen TO us, but that’s not what he’s talking about here as the task of a Christian. He’s telling us to intentionally put ourselves out there, to deliberately seek out situations that will make ourselves uncomfortable for the sake the one who is making us uncomfortable. Going and suffering is a risk and we don’t always know how it will turn out. There is potential for disaster, and there will be suffering, it will be hard…yet that is what Jesus did for us, and that’s what he tells us to do to follow him. We had 20 teenagers GO SUFFER this past weekend. They willingly gave up food for 30 hours so they could stand in solidarity with the 29,000 children who die everyday from starvation. Last week, we had a work team from Hope GO to Haiti to be with the people there and they experienced much suffering while they were there: people starving to death, people living in squalor, fortunate people who did have jobs but worked from sun up to sun down in 90 degree heat for $2 a day, 30 little girls who either have no parents or have been abandon by them because they couldn’t take care of them. Think how contrary this message is to everything you see in America today. We’re bombarded with messages of “If it feels good do it”, “Take care of yourself first”, “Beauty, power, fame, money, happiness is all that matters.” No wonder the church struggles for members: GO SUFFER isn’t the most appealing message to Americans. And unfortunately, the 2nd half of the phrase isn’t much more appealing to most people – the D & R. Die and Rise. Oh sure, the RISE part is awfully appealing. We constantly want to reinvent ourselves, have a “new” us, have a fresh start, but who wants to mess with that nasty, yucky part of dying part first. How many people get liposuction because they want the quick fix of weight loss without the hard work, the dying of a diet and exercise? How many people want to make a quick buck on the stock market or in gambling without the dying of actually earning their money by working hard? How many people want the thrill and excitement of sex so they turn to pornography or multiple partners without the hard work of a marriage, the dying of yourself to care for and make a lifelong commitment to one other person? We Americans love the rising part, the immediate gratification, but we’re just very death-averse. We don’t like giving ourselves away. We don’t like putting other people first or sharing. We don’t like suffering, especially suffering that leads to death. In fact, we’ll do almost whatever it takes so we don’t suffer and die. Think about it, when was the last time you willingly put yourself out there where you knew you would suffer and perhaps die for your faith? Where you might be embarrassed to talk about your faith or stand up for what’s right? Where you might lose your job over an ethical question? Where you sat with someone in a crisis when you had better things to do? Where you knew whatever you were doing would probably completely change life as you knew it? I know that I’m very death-averse. I’m pretty comfortable. I like being happy. And I try to avoid difficult, painful situations, and I certainly don’t seek them out willingly. But here is where the good news comes in. Jesus doesn’t just tell us what he’s going to do, we know what he already did…he went, he suffered, he died and he rose. He did these things. He went first. He willingly chose to go, suffer, die and rise and he begs us to come follow. My first job was as a lifeguard and maintenance guy at a church camp. One of my first days on the job, the camp director told me something that stuck with me the rest of the summer. He said, “Chad, always remember, I won’t ever ask you to do anything that I wouldn’t or haven’t already done myself.” Everyday he would give me a list of tasks to accomplish and often the list included things like: clean the bathrooms, empty (by hand) the filters in the pool, move decaying logs covered in bugs, and empty the slop bucket. But I’ll never forget when the nastiest, grossest jobs came up, like when the camp’s entire septic system backed up and we had to unclog it together, sorting through more poop than you can imagine, he was always going first, taking on the nastiest and dirtiest parts. Because he was right there in it during those times – doing that nasty stuff first and often by himself, I had no doubt that he had indeed also cleaned his fair share of bathrooms and moved rotting firewood. He had done it all before and he was true to his promise – he never asked me to do something that he hadn’t already done. Jesus was like that. He’s not asking us to do anything he hasn’t already done. And in the very worst parts, he still does them all by himself – like accomplishing our salvation. He goes, suffers, and dies so that we can RISE with him. And I guess that’s why Jesus’ rebuke of Peter hit me differently this time I read it. He tells Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Maybe, just maybe, Jesus isn’t yelling at Peter, as much as he’s saying to Peter, “Let me go first. Let me do it so that it’s not as bad for you. Let me be the leader.” When I’m being Satan, when I’m trying to do it my way, or trying to do it all myself, or trying to be as comfortable as possible, I need this same reminder: “Get behind Jesus, Idiot.” To set our mind on the divine, is to let Jesus be first in our life. He was the first one to go, suffer, die, rise….and in following him through the G-S-D, we will also be following him in the Rising. It will take some intentionality on our part, it will undoubtedly be difficult, even painful, but following Jesus through G-S-D is really the only way to get to the R. Amen.
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