Accepting Christ for Who He Is / Ladders or Crosses

Prov 1:20-33; Jas 3:1-12; Mk 8:27-38

Two years ago Linda and I went back to Washington, D.C. to visit. We made the rounds – stopping at our former student parish, visiting our seminary, the National Cathedral, where we attended Evensong. Then we went downtown to the monuments. We wanted to see the two that were new since our days at seminary. We saw the Korean War memorial and the Vietnam memorial, both works of art that have a rare symbolic power. Both address the mystery of suffering that has no rhyme or reason; both of them restructure reality to enable us to deal creatively with the mystery of suffering.

In the last 500 years, a work of art which has exerted great symbolic power on a vast number of people is the Isenheim Altarpiece, completed in 1515. The altarpiece, measuring 10 feet high, is now housed in the museum in Colmar, France.

The Order of St. Anthony commissioned the altarpiece for their monastery in Isenheim. They asked Mathias Grunewald and Albrecht Durer to present their chapel with something that would bring healing and cleansing to the poor and diseased, something especially for those afflicted with the most horrible diseases of the world.

How did the monks expect the sick to find healing and cleansing in front of a masterpiece? The answer was in the successive revelations unveiled by the opening and closing of the altarpiece.

When the altarpiece was closed the poor and sick saw only the crucifixion panel which was the most gruesome, tortured, tormented crucifixion scene ever painted. Jesus is seen with a monstrous crown of thorns on his brow, his body is dangling with twisted limbs, covered with cuts and rivulets of blood. The scene was one of unbearable agony. (This picture hung over the desk of the great theologian Karl Barth as he wrote and worked.)

When the wings of the altarpiece are opened, the dark, deserted depiction of the crucifixion gives way to a blaze of light. Suddenly the poor and sick stand in awe before three spectacular panels. The first panel contained the most unusual Annunciation scene ever painted, the second panel depicts the angel choir with seraphs and cherubim, the third panel revealed the glorious resurrection scene with Jesus exploding from the grave.

Where is the healing? As Jesus taught in the gospel lesson for today, when the crucified body of Christ is encountered, life and health are found. When the body of Christ is broken, when blood pours forth, community is born and healing is begun. It is through pain and suffering that birth and healing and resurrection come forth. In the words of St. Augustine – "The greater the joy, the greater is the pain which precedes it."

In our gospel lesson Jesus sought to teach his disciples that before he could reach "the joy set before him," Jesus had to pass through the pain of many "dark nights" and "shadowed valleys." The journey of Jesus' life teaches us, as it taught those who stood before that great artwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece, that before the resurrection sunrise, we must pass through aches and lashes, spit and spear, thorns and thongs.

In the 25 years I have been in ministry, and as a Christian child growing up in Flint, most of the emphasis, if not all of the emphasis, during the last part of Lent is on the morning of Easter. Holy Week is a rush to Sunday morning, stores have Easter clothes for sale, Easter bunnies are displayed, Easter candy laid is out. But, where is Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, anymore, in our celebration of Lent? We kind of curtsey on those two days. Maybe it is because we want to forget those two days because they aren't fun, because they make us feel uncomfortable.

Or we may think that we, as 20th century people – sophisticated and affluent, well-
educated, respected and successful – who have it all -- we may think that we are disciples of Jesus and are prepared for anything. But until you understand the secret power of the Isenheim altarpiece and why it heals, you are unprepared for being a disciple of Jesus. The secret lies in the figure of Mary who is the most pronounced and interesting figure in the altarpiece, apart from Jesus.

In that altarpiece the figure of Mary is pictured with the angel Gabriel, who brought to Mary a message of authority. You must come to terms with Mary because to be a disciple means that you must understand what it must have been like to be the mother of Jesus. You have to understand what it meant to be chosen to receive God's favor. To be the least, the last and yet called to give birth to the Christ child, to bring Christ to this earth and have Christ come alive in men and women: As disciples, the least, the last, yet called, we are to do the same. And yet, truly, it is not an easy path to follow.

Today we have the popular religious mentality, taught on television by popular preachers that to find favor with God is to find the perfect boss, the perfect spouse, the perfect child, the perfect friend; to be blessed by health, wealth, and happiness. This is the Jacuzzi Jesus! A very popular understanding of meeting Jesus is to have an experience of Jesus that will leave you relaxed, warm, bubbly and fit and trim – In other words, in perfect shape.

The gospel of John calls Jesus the Word of God. In Greek Word is Logos. Logos is the divine revelation of God. But today many people want the word of God to be not the Logos. Instead they want it to be the logo. They want it to be the incarnation of the establishment with the standards and symbols of the day. Jesus is not in the logos of popular religion. Rather, Jesus is the Logos! And that means having to encounter the suffering and the pain. It means having to come to terms with Good Friday. And that is what Jesus was telling the crowd and his disciples in this morning's gospel lesson.

Some of the great crucifixion scenes in the world of art from Rembrandt to Picasso, do not usually portray a cross with a ladder propped up against it. A ladder is propped up against the cross in some paintings only when artists want to portray Christ's "Descent from the Cross". For a ladder was used to take Christ down from the cross. And that ladder symbol is in some of our churches, even today, but even more in our society and in our hearts. For we want to remove Christ from the cross, and from our disciples. Skip Good Friday, we shout! Let's get on to Easter!

The Gospel shows us in St. Paul's words, "a more excellent way," a way not of wealth, health, or all happiness, but of servanthood. Mary knew that to answer the authority of God meant dealing with the crucifixion. For Mary the crucifixion was a structuring symbol in her life. Certainly, you and I have found favor with God, even as Mary did, but how many of us would have said "no!" if we had known that the crucifixion lay ahead? Some of us wear nice crosses as jewelry around our necks, but do we understand what the cross really means as for the true disciple of Christ? For the disciple of Christ the cross is not cute and nice and comfortable.

Mary was the first to realize what it meant to accept the gospel, to allow it to enter her life. It meant a radically different structure in her life. The grace of God takes us but it does not leave us just as we are. It turns our world upside-down. The gospel is the power to become with one another the body of Christ. And this is not to be gotten through success or a golden throne, but a wooden, rugged cross.

There is a very old pulpit story that tells of a customer who went into a jewelry story to buy a cross necklace. The clerk asked, "Do you want to see a plain one, or do you want to look at the one with the little man on it?"

As modern people living in a modern day we want the plain one. It is difficult for us to see Jesus suffering on the cross. Each of us have different ideas about suffering. But none of us want to be reminded of Jesus suffering on the cross. So we especially do not want to wear a cross with Jesus suffering. It would be an uncomfortable reminder of what happened to Jesus. And we are especially hard of hearing when Christ's voice calls us to confront and even stay in the suffering we have in our lives. We have suffering in spite of the successes we have in life and the power we accumulate through life. We don't want to see pain, we don't want to wear a painful cross. We want the plain one, the one that shows us and reminds us only of the resurrection.

Many of us look to success and not suffering as the measure to whether we have been blessed by God. Thus, even our professionalism and drive to climb that ladder of success has led us to the point where the central motivating symbol of discipleship is the ladder and not the cross.

There is a story of Elmer Gantry, who went from a successful career in business to a successful career in the ministry. Towards the end of his life he looked back upon it all and realized that climbing the ladder was not the true meaning of life. After reaching the top of all the ladders he had climbed, he realized that all the struggle, all the costs to his family and friendships, all the sacrifices he had made to reach the pinnacle were not worth what he found there and the lack of meaning that he found and felt.

The only ladder the Bible knows anything about is Jacob's ladder. Jacob's ladder was pitched against the spirited rather than the material. Actually, Jacob had no ladder, he had a vision and a mission. He did not climb the ladder, the angels did. When the theme song of a disciple becomes, "We are climbing Jacob's ladder," Jesus' followers become better at climbing ladders than at lifting crosses. Ladders mean looking for success. They don't tell us anything about pain or struggle.

But, Saint Augustine talked about "the costly grace" of God. Discipleship, servanthood, costs us everything. Everything must go. Genesis 2:25 conveys this powerfully in the image of nakedness. "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed." To be naked means to be without protection; it is to be unarmed. It requires us to surrender our weapons which we carry around – credit cards, our degrees, the books written, our medals, all our clothes and jewelry, all to get rid of in order to love.

To find favor with God is to be called to disarmament, called to be defenseless, to be as Mary in the Isenheim altarpiece, to answer God, to answer the call to discipleship. God does not favor us with ease. God does not favor us with comfort.

We saw this in the life of Mother Theresa. She was called to the poorest of the poor. And often while she found that while it was impossible for her to ease their suffering, to keep them from their pain, to stop them from dying, she was still able to help them find the peace of Christ and salvation and grace in the midst of it all.

A favorite sign posted in an African game reserve is this one: "Advance and be bitten!" St. Paul posted the same kind of sign at the entrance to the Christian life: "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake" (Phil. 1:29). In other words, suffering for the sake of Christ is as much an honor and a blessing as believing in him. The apostles believed this even after being beaten, rejoicing that they were "worthy to suffer for his sake."

"Who do you say I am?" Jesus asked Peter. If we answer, "The

Messiah! The Son of the Living God," you will certainly have answered correctly and should be counted among God's favored ones for doing so. But remember, your calling as God's favored one cannot promise you success. Your calling as God's favored one cannot promise you prosperity or popularity or a life passed only in pleasure. Your calling can only promise you hardship, weariness, suffering, rupture and so on.

So are you ready to say as did Mary as portrayed in the Isenheim altarpiece – "Let it be to me, according to your word"? Are you ready to say with Jesus, "Not my will, but your will be done"? Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

Are you ready to pray the greatest prayer ever uttered, the simple but great Amen – "So be it?"

The symbol of discipleship is not the ladder but the cross. We glory in the cross of Christ, not in the rungs of the ladder, but in the nails on the cross.

Amen.