church

INI
Invocavit, The First Sunday in Lent
February 21, 20010
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

THERE IS NO JERUSALEM BYPASS
Matthew 16:21-23

To the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor
and glory forever and ever, Amen. Our text for today comes from the sixteenth
chapter of Matthew, beginning with verse 21, as follows:

From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to
Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes,
and be killed, and be raised the third day. 22 Then Peter took Him aside and
began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen
to You!" 23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are
an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of
men." These are the words.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Who calls us to take up our crosses and follow
Him, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

For those of you who have done a lot of traveling by car, you probably know
what a ‘beltway’ is. Almost every major population center in America has one.
It’s a multi-lane freeway that encircles a metropolitan area. On a map, it often
looks like a giant belt around the city; hence the name. And it’s a pretty handy
thing to have, especially if you’re like me and you hate the thought of getting
stuck downtown in a strange city. Minneapolis/St. Paul is a perfect example: if
you don’t want to hack your way through the downtown area, you can take 694
around the north, or 494 around the south. No stop signs, no traffic lights -- you
don’t even have to slow down. America’s beltways provide an easy bypass for
most big cities. They guarantee that if you don’t want to visit that city, there’s
an easy way around.

Well, this week we're starting down the road of Lent. It's the season when we
consider our Savior's Passion, and the redemption that resulted from it. As we
prepare, once again, to journey down that road, we should know that a certain
city lies along it: the city of Jerusalem. It is dark and forbidding; suffering waits
there, and a cross. It would seem so much easier for us to go around, to bypass
Jerusalem if at all possible. At least, that's the way Simon Peter saw it. But in
this case, going around is not an option. In today's text, our Lord reveals that,
on the road to Redemption,

THERE IS NO JERUSALEM BYPASS
I. -- Not for Jesus.
II. -- Not for Peter.
III. -- And not for us.

Do you know what last Wednesday was? Ash Wednesday - the first day of
Lent. That means we're now less than six short weeks from Good Friday, and
the cross. Time was growing short for Jesus, too, when the events of our text
took place. He knew, just as He had always known, what was waiting for Him
in Jerusalem. Several times in the past, He'd tried to warn His disciples about
what was going to happen to Him. Once, while He was standing in the
Jerusalem Temple, He had said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up." -- John 2:19. On another occasion, He gave them a hint by referring
to the story of Jonah; He said, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in
the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights
in the heart of the earth." -- Mat 12:40.

But now was no time for hints. There was little time left. Now Jesus decided to
tell them plainly what was going to happen. Our text says, From that time Jesus
began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many
things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised
the third day.

Yes, He had escaped the Jews before; He had foiled their plots and countered
their death threats. But this time He wouldn't escape. He would give Himself
willingly into their hands. Jesus could see clearly down that road, and He knew
that, for Him, there was no getting around Jerusalem. He had to go there. He
asked His bewildered disciples, "What shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this
hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour." -- John 12:27. This was God's
plan: that Jesus would bear all the sins of the world on His shoulders as He
made His way down that road to Jerusalem. When the innocent Son of God had
been lifted up on the cross, the wrath of God over sin would descend like a
lightning bolt, and expend itself on the body of Jesus. That was the whole
reason He was there - to redeem the world from sin. Jesus couldn't avoid
Jerusalem, not this time. If He did, He would be abandoning all mankind to the
punishment of hell. And that He was not willing to do.

So Jesus told his disciples plainly how it had to be. He explained in a kindly
way, just as you might break bad news to a small child. He also tried to show
them, though, that there was light at the end of the tunnel - that death would
not hold Him, but that He would rise triumphant on the third day. But the
disciples must have missed that in their shock and confusion; after His death,
they would forget all about His promise of a resurrection. For right now, all they
could think about was the terrible news that Jesus was about to hand Himself
over to his enemies.

They were stunned. As usual, Peter spoke up first. Then Peter took Him aside
and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not
happen to You!".

Most of us have done this at one time or another. I mean, someone you love
gives you a piece of bad news, and your first reaction is denial. "Heaven forbid!
No way! I'm sure that could never happen!" The natural response is denial --
whether or not the denial makes any sense. Peter heard the bad news, and
immediately denied it. It was unthinkable that Jesus should go to Jerusalem and
die. There had to be some way around it. Couldn't they hide out for a while?
Couldn't they just bypass Jerusalem, and go back up north to Galilee? Surely
Jesus, with all His powers, could find some way to avoid this terrible danger!

This was a low point in Peter's faith, and it's interesting that it came so soon
after one of his highest points. Back up a few verses from our text, and you'll
hear Jesus asking the disciples, "'Who do you say that I am?' And it was Simon
Peter answered and said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.'" A
beautiful confession! -But Peter's knowledge was incomplete. He knew who
Jesus was, but he was still in the dark about what Jesus came to do. The
disciples were still hoping that He would be an earthly King; that Jesus would
kick the hated Romans out of the country and set up a glorious kingdom in
Israel. And now, with these gloomy prophesies about His death, Jesus was
shattering all their hopes of glory. They had painted themselves rosy picture of
how it was going to be, and there was no room in that picture for a cross. NO,
said Peter. Don't go to Jerusalem. There must be some way around it, some way
to bypass Jerusalem.

But for Simon Peter, as for Jesus, there was no getting around Jerusalem. Jesus
turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for
you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." There's a
fascinating Greek word in this passage - the word for "offense". It literally
means, "a death-trap". Jesus recognized Peter's plea as a trap that Satan had
cleverly laid for Him. It was tempting. How easy it would have been for Jesus to
take the bait and to agree with Peter. Yes, Peter, you're right - we'd have to be
crazy to go up to Jerusalem. Let's tackle Jerusalem another time. But what
terrible consequences there would have been to that decision - to leave the
work of redemption undone, to let a world of sinners languish with no hope of
heaven! Jesus confronted the temptation, and rejected it. He would go on,
straight into Jerusalem -- straight to the cross.

What about you? Are you willing to go to Jerusalem? Are you willing to take up
your cross and follow Jesus there? -Not many people are. Oh, a lot of folks are
perfectly willing to follow Christ -- as long as they can skip Jerusalem. I vividly
recall one woman remarking indignantly on a funeral service she'd attended at a
Lutheran church, "I didn't go to that church to be told I was a sinner!" There
are many who say the same thing. People want to feel good about themselves.
They want to feel they are accepted by God on their own merits. They want to
be considered religious by their neighbors -- but they'd rather not confront the
subject of their own sinfulness. What they're really trying to do is get around
Jerusalem. For it is at Jerusalem that we come face to face with the fact of our
own sinfulness. It is there, at the cross, that we see the consequences of our
own disobedience. It is there on Mt. Calvary, in the tortured, suffering face of
the Son of God, that we see the real punishment our sins deserve.

Yes, many people are willing to follow Christ -- as long as they can skip
Jerusalem. We talked about this last week. People are willing to see Jesus as a
great moralizer, and His life as a shining example of how we all ought to live: do
this, don't do that, keep your nose clean and try your best. After all, that's a
plan of salvation that people can understand. But the cross? That God would
sacrifice His Son for sinners with nothing expected in return? No, thank you,
that's a little too much to swallow. If that's what Jerusalem stands for, then they
want nothing to do with Jerusalem. They'd rather go around. The shame and
suffering of the cross makes no sense to them. Paul said, "But we preach Christ
crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to
those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God." -- 1 Cor 1:23-24.

My fellow Christians, the truth is that there is no Jerusalem bypass. We know
the reason for the cross. It was our sins - yours and mine - that made the cross
necessary.

Jesus could have bypassed Jerusalem. No question. But the glory of the Lenten
season is that He did not bypass Jerusalem! Out of love for you and me, He did
the unthinkable - He sacrificed Himself for us. The Sinless for the sinful.
Jerusalem was the place where Jesus in His great love for us, became our
Substitute. The hymnist puts it so poignantly when he asks, in the familiar
Lenten hymn:

"What punishment so strange is suffered yonder?
The Shepherd dies for sheep who loved to wander!
The Master pays the debt His servants owe Him,
Who would not know Him!"

Jesus knew that only His blood could pay our ransom price, so He shed that
blood willingly. "[Jesus is] the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame." -- Heb 12:2.
Through His blood, we are now redeemed, restored, forgiven! He walked
straight down that dark road into Jerusalem, and because He did, the bright and
joyous road to heaven is now wide open to us!

St. Paul/Minneapolis, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago - all cities you
can bypass if you want to. Just get on the beltway and drive around, and avoid
all the hassle. Nothing simpler. But as we Christians look down the dark road of
Lent, we know -- there is no getting around Jerusalem. Not for Jesus, not for
Peter, and not for us. Let us follow our Savior there once again this year,
because we know that Jerusalem isn't the end of the road. It is beyond
Jerusalem where our true destination lies - in eternal glory! For Jesus' sake,
AMEN.