You don’t usually want to lead with the bad news. When you’re reporting to your boss or a client about the big project you’re working on. When you’re giving a patient their test results. When you call your aunt, the one who assumes the worst every time the phone rings; who says “Hello. What’s wrong?”
In general, I think it’s best to start with the good news. But not always.
In the church we have a tendency to lead with the bad news most of the time, don’t we? You barely get settled in your seats on a Sunday morning and we say, “Let’s confess our sins.” It’s like we want to make sure you’re not too happy. When you think about it, it’s a wonder anyone sticks around. It’s amazing that people come back for more. Especially in the season of Lent, when we like to give you an extra-large helping of bad news.
We could all really use some good news right about now. But sometimes the gospel makes it challenging. A passage like this one we read today seems like it’s all bad news. Suffering, rejection, crucifixion. There is also the part about rising again on the third day, but the way he tucked that in at the end of that list of calamities, I doubt anyone was able to hear it.
I can only imagine what Peter said to Jesus when he drew him aside. Hey, Jesus, lighten up. This is not what being the Messiah is all about. Things have been going well so far. We’re riding a good wave, with all the healing and the feeding and the casting out demons from innocent children, you’re doing good work. So why bring up death and suffering and denial now?
I don’t really know what Peter said to him, but whatever he said was the wrong thing. Jesus drew away from him and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
And everyone heard him say it. Now they’re all listening. So Jesus says more.
If you want to be my follower, then deny yourself; take up your cross. For any who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake, for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
This all sounds like bad news.
Maybe that is why we, the church, are pretty good at handling it – the bad news. We’ve been doing it for a long time.
One of the things we do every Sunday when we come together for worship is to share our joys and concerns. Right before the prayers of the people, with the understanding that all these joys and concerns that we share will be taken up by everyone to hold in their prayers. Sometimes I will say, we share our joys so that we all may be in celebration together for the good things in our lives, and we share our concerns so that we all may share in bearing the burden, the weight of our sorrows. It’s a weekly reminder that we are all in it together.
And, as I said, I like to start with the good news – the joys – before going into the concerns. But, as you have probably noticed, the concerns always outnumber the joys – by a lot. And I don’t believe that is because we are a bunch of miserable wretches. I think it is because we all have the sense that in our greatest needs we can turn to the church and have our burdens lifted.
I think it is because we know that, somehow, at the cross we can find healing.
It’s a weird notion, that must be said. When Jesus announced to his followers that they would need to take up their crosses and follow him, I don’t doubt for a second that they were alarmed by this. They all knew too well what the cross was about. They lived with it, crosses lining the roads where they had to walk past them daily, crosses with suffering and dead bodies hanging from them. It was an instrument of torture and terror, which the empire used effectively. It was a daily reminder to the people of just what awaited them should they revolt against the empire. Should they resist the power of Rome, the cross was the threat.
Yet the mystery of the cross is that Jesus took what was an ugly instrument of death and turned it into a symbol of life, because that is where he chose to be. He took this pain into his body, and he brought healing. And hope.
Jesus says to us, take up your cross and follow me; follow me into the midst of the hardship and pain. Go where Jesus is already; stand at the intersection of suffering and divine presence.
As I spent some time with this passage this week, I could not help but think about Alexei Navalny, whose life ended in a Russian prison cell on February 16. He was a man who clearly had decided he was willing to give up his life for the sake of something bigger. And something I learned just this morning is that in recent years, Navalny converted from atheism to Christianity. During his trial a few years ago, he spoke about his faith. One of the things he said was that when he became a believer, everything became much simpler for him. There were fewer dilemmas for him because it was much clearer to him what needed to be done. It was not necessarily easier. But it was clear what he needed to try to do. And he also knew that he was not alone in it. And all this was well beyond anything he could have imagined before he became a Christian.
God has created each of us for a life that goes beyond anything we can imagine, if only we can let go of the bumper pads we like to wrap ourselves in; if only we would take off the training wheels and ride into the reality of joy and sorrow, intertwined. See how powerful it is.
If you want to see this at work in a lovely, delightful way, find a bunch of young children to share joys and concerns with. I used to do this with a church preschool. We would bring the children into the sanctuary and sit down in a circle. We lit a candle, sang a song, and then invited the children to share their joys and concerns. Just like we do here.
As we went around the circle, I would ask each one if they had any joys or concerns to share and they often would tell me they had both. Then I would ask them which they would like to start with, and they usually wanted to start with their concern. I think, like most of us, the concern is what feels most urgent.
The things they shared ran the gamut. It could be a joy like, “I have candy in my room!” or it could be a concern like, “Daddy moved away,” or “Mommy had to go to the hospital.” Little people have big concerns.
Sometimes they seemed kind of unclear, though, about just what would constitute a joy or a concern. One day there was a girl who said to me, “I have a joy! Elena is my best friend.” I said how glad I was that she had Elena. Then she said, “I have a concern, too! Tony is my best friend.” So, I don’t know what that meant. Maybe she didn’t really know either. And that’s okay, because I think we are all a little hazy sometimes on what qualifies as good news and bad news.
But one day I asked a child if he had a joy or a concern to share and he told me he had a conjoy. And I think that is a brilliant word.
There might not really be that much of a difference between a joy and a concern. They are the warp and the weft of life. And if we think that we can cut a wide path around the pain of life and just have joy, joy, joy all the time, we are lying to ourselves. The way to joy is very often right through the pain. The way to the good news is through the bad news. The way to light is through the darkness.
The way to Jesus is through the cross. And the way is full of conjoys.
May you live this life of conjoy, in its fullness.
