09/01/2026
Sermon for The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 17A on 08/30/2026
“The Cross for You”
Text: Matthew 16:21-28
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our crucified and risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen. Our text for this morning’s sermon is our Gospel reading. It’s Matthew 16:21-28
A cross is obviously the distinct symbol for Christianity. We all know this. We use them to decorate the walls of our houses, we wear them as jewelry and as symbols on our clothing, and many of us follow Luther’s suggestion of starting and ending each day by making the sign of the cross over ourselves with our hand.
However, many would find this odd, especially in the first few centuries of the New Testament Church. [And] the reason they would find it odd is because the cross was a symbol of shame and rejection. It was certainly scandalous to be crucified, but it was almost equally shameful to be related to someone who was crucified. If you wore a cross on a chain around your neck during the first few centuries of the New Testament Church, you would have been seen as being foolish and maybe even mentally unstable.
The other reason it could be considered odd for the cross to be the primary symbol of Christianity is because Jesus rose from the dead. There was an empty tomb that proclaimed Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil. So, why use a shameful cross as your symbol when you could use a victorious empty tomb?
Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with art or even jewelry depicting the empty tomb. But, there are two primary reasons why the cross is the main symbol for Christianity and not the empty tomb. First, Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30) on the cross, not after He left the tomb. The cross is actually the place where your salvation was won. The empty tomb, which is no less important, is simply the evidence that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was accept by God.
Then, the second reason the cross is the main symbol of Christianity is because of our text for today. In a world full of sin and chaos, we don’t take up our tombs and follow Jesus. Instead, we take up our cross and follow Jesus because suffering must come before glory. We must endure the sin and struggle of this world, and the cross is the symbol of that struggle.
We’ll talk more about this when we get to the second part of our text. But for now, as we consider the importance of the cross, our text tells you that JESUS TOOK UP HIS CROSS FOR YOU. Jesus went to the cross, despite the shame and rejection it brings, because that’s what was necessary to save you.
(JESUS TOOK UP HIS CROSS FOR YOU.)
(I. …even though that’s not what you would expect from the Christ. [vv. 21-23])
(II. …so that you can find your life. [vv. 24-28])
I.
In fact, Jesus took up His cross for you, even though that’s not what you would expect from the Christ. We learned this in our text when it said, “21 From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” 23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, satan! You are a hindrance to Me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.””
Now last Sunday, we discussed that Peter answered, for himself and on behalf of the other eleven disciples, the most important question any one could ever be asked, and that question is simply, “Who do you say Jesus is?” To this question, we heard Peter say to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
This, as we discussed, is, most certainly, the correct answer. Jesus is, indeed, the promised Messiah Who God promised to send all throughout the Old Testament, starting in Genesis 3:15. [And] as the promised Messiah, that means Jesus is also the Son of God Who has existed from all eternity.
However, just because Peter got the vocabulary terms and the office Jesus fills correct, that doesn’t mean Peter understood the job description. So, our text tells us that Jesus further described for the disciples what it meant that He’s the Christ. In order for Jesus to be the Christ, this means He had to go to Jerusalem where He would suffer at the hands of sinful men, be put to death, but then, three days later, He would be raised from the dead.
Of course, that’s not what Peter expected the Messiah to do. [And] truthfully, that’s not what anyone from any time or any place would expect the Messiah to do. After all, Messiah or Christ simply means “anointed one” or “chosen one”, and this is Who Jesus is. He’s the chosen one… the One Who was to come and set all things right. Therefore, it was thought that the Messiah would crush satan, crush the Romans and any other foreign rulers, and establish His eternal kingdom from the throne of King David in Jerusalem.
Sure, the book of Isaiah talks about the Christ being a servant king, but in the opinion of most people, if Jesus was going to be a king like David, then, He most certainly had to be a warrior king as well. [And] if David had slain 10,000 (1 Samuel 18:7), then the greatest king of all would slay 100,000.
After all, this is what great kings do. They strike down their enemies without mercy, and they establish their reign through great power and might so that no one dares to challenge their power. This is how empires and dynasties rise to power and stay in power. [And] so, Peter and the disciples, like the rest of humanity, thought that Jesus would do the same.
Therefore, when Jesus started talking about suffering and dying, this was crazy talk to the disciples. Peter didn’t even consider the idea of Jesus rising from the dead three days later. But, I’m not sure that would have even mattered because no one wants a suffering, bloodied, dying man as their king, and they certainly don’t want such a person as their God because this would indicate defeat.
But as we’ll hear in three weeks on The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost from Isaiah 55:8 & 9, the Lord says, “8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” God doesn’t work the way our sinful and limited minds think He should work because His wisdom is far beyond anything we could ever comprehend.
[And] so, despite the fact that Jesus dying on the cross is beyond anything anyone would ever expect, this is what Jesus had to do. It was a divine necessity. Jesus had to do it. As our text said, “He must go to Jerusalem…” to die and rise again. There was no other option if humanity was going to be saved.
In fact, this was the whole reason Jesus was born of a virgin, He lived a sinless life while traveling all over the Promised Land preaching that people needed to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven [was] at hand” (Matthew 4:17), and He healed people of their diseases and demons. This all happened because Jesus was going to the cross to pay for the sin of all humanity.
[And] so, when Peter gave into satan’s temptation to try to prevent Jesus from going to the cross, Jesus sternly rebuked Peter. In fact, Peter wasn’t just being a “hindrance” to Jesus, rather the Greek word there could also be translated as “scandalous”. Peter was being disgraceful and shameful toward Jesus because the salvation of all humanity rested on this one sacrificial act. If Jesus doesn’t go to the cross, then we would all be dead in our trespasses and sins. “We’re on the Highway to Hell” wouldn’t just be a song, but it would actually be a reality.
So, Jesus did what the Christ came to do. He went to the cross to pay for your sin and evil so that you could be redeemed and saved from eternal damnation. This means that Jesus doesn’t rule from a royal throne like a normal king. Instead, Jesus rules from a wooden cross because it was on that cross where He conquered sin, death, and the devil for you.
While the kings of this world conquer by putting others to death, the true king of the universe conquered by allowing Himself to be put to death. [And] in His death, it was the ultimate act of “overcome[ing] evil with good” (Romans 12:21).
II.
Therefore, you can now say that Jesus took up His cross for you so that you can find your life. The second part of our text talks about this when it says, “24 Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.””
We have this tendency to think that we deserve certain things and that we deserve to be treated a certain way in this world. We like to place value on ourselves for who we are and what we do, and as a result, we try to gain a little glory for ourselves. Although sometimes, we try to gain a lot of glory for ourselves.
However, we aren’t living in glory right now. The resurrection to eternal life hasn’t happened yet. This is because the glory of the empty tomb hasn’t happened for you yet, and therefore, in this sinful world, you still live under the cross. Earlier, we talked about this as being the second reason the cross is the main symbol for Christianity rather than the empty tomb. The symbol of the cross reminds us that we haven’t fully reached glory yet. This, then, is why, as Lutherans, we often call ourselves “theologians of the cross”. As theologians of the cross, we know that suffering, struggles, and challenges are going to afflict us in this lifetime.
[And] so, we deny that there’s any value in us that should prevent us from facing the difficulties in life, and instead, as Christians, we find our value and our identity in Jesus. In other words, your importance isn’t in who you are or what you’ve done or where you’re from. Instead, your value is found in the fact that Jesus took up His cross for you. In His life, death, and resurrection, you and all people have value… that’s where you find your life.
However, in this lifetime, you don’t fully see or experience that value and life. Instead, we all have crosses to bear… crosses to carry that make life difficult and sometimes unbearable.
Now, in the context of our text, the cross that Jesus is calling us to take up as we follow Him are specifically those struggles and difficulties that come to us as a result of us being Christians. When people are persecuted for being Christians, the temptation is to deny Jesus in order to save your earthly life. In such a case, Jesus warns you that you’ll save yourself for the time being, but you’ll actually lose your life for all eternity.
But while the specific context is to struggles that come to us directly as a result of our Christian faith, it’s also true that we endure sufferings in this life for all sorts of reasons, and whenever we suffer, satan will use that as an opportunity to tempt you into denying Jesus. Whenever you suffer, the temptation that comes upon you is that God isn’t caring for you, or that God is out to get you, or that you’re the only one who has these problems. [And] so, rather than seeing your problem as a “light momentary affliction [that’s] preparing [you] for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17), the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh tempt you to see your suffering as evidence that you’d do better off if you weren’t carrying your cross… if you weren’t remaining faithful to Jesus.
[And] certainly, this temptation is real. We’ve all dealt with it, or if you haven’t, then you will. We see people prospering through deceitful and evil methods, and yet, we work hard and try to be honest in our business dealings only to come up short more often than we would like to acknowledge. In our Epistle lesson for today from Romans 12(:9-21), the apostle Paul told us to leave vengeance to the Lord, and yet, those people who hurt us seem to continuously get away with their sinful and unethical practices. We know Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute Christians (Matthew 5:44), but those people never seem to change, and the situation for Christians in this country is getting worse-and-worse all the time.
[And] as we try to endure the struggles and trials of this world, it can seem as if taking up our cross and following Jesus isn’t worth it. It can seem as if it would be more beneficial to promote ourselves and do whatever is necessary to make life on this planet as easy and as profitable as possible.
But, the reality is, this world is temporary. This life and its problems, as well as its rewards, will all fade away someday. Jesus will “come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and… repay each person according to what he has done”. However, when Jesus gives us this warning, He’s not telling you to do what’s right so that you can receive eternal life. This isn’t Jesus teaching us works righteousness. Instead, Jesus is encouraging you to remain faithful. Continue to live under the forgiveness of His cross which teaches you that you have nothing good or of value within yourself, but you have everything good and everything of value in Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection that He accomplished for you and for your salvation. When you live this way, then all the things that you do are done in Christ, and therefore, your deeds done as a result of your faith in Jesus will be rewarded.
This, then, is where you find your life. You don’t find it in the good works you do or in the good things of life or in the accomplishments you achieve. Rather, you find your life in Christ. You find your life both today and for all eternity in the fact that Jesus took up His cross for you and for your salvation, and then, He joined you to His cross and His resurrection through the forgiving waters of Holy Baptism so that all your sin is now washed away. Therefore, in the midst of the struggles and trials of this life, as you carry your crosses in this world, you have the sure and certain promise from Jesus that all your crosses will be gone One Day. As a Christian, you will receive the glory of the empty tomb on the Day Jesus reappears with all His angels.
No doubt, it doesn’t always look like that. In fact, your life often looks like Jesus did on the cross. Your life sometimes looks defeated, hopeless, and pointless. You had hoped that this time your life was going to turn around and everything was going to run smoothly. But then, another cross and another stumbling block is put in your way.
You often feel like Jeremiah in our Old Testament reading for today when he said, “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” (Jeremiah 15:18abc) It was one struggle after another for Jeremiah. The persecution, the mocking, and the suffering never seemed to stop.
However, just as the Lord promised to build up Jeremiah so that he was like a “fortified wall of bronze” (Jeremiah 15:20b) against his enemies, Jesus does the same for you in the midst of your struggles and trials. [And] this happens for you regardless of whether your struggles and trials result from persecution or are simply the result of living as a sinner in a sinful world. No matter why you have to take up your cross, Jesus will give you what you need to carry that cross.
For Jeremiah, the Lord was going to fill him with His Word. Likewise, the Lord will fill you with His Word as well. Only, for Jeremiah, the Lord spoke to him in an audible voice to fill him with His Holy Word. You, on the other hand, receive God’s Word through preaching and the Sacraments.
This, then, is why the Holy Spirit leads you here each and every week… because here, the Word of God in Holy Absolution renews you in the life of your Baptism, and the Word of God in preaching and teaching assures you that Jesus has, indeed, taken up His cross for you so that He can give you strength through His forgiving Word to carry your cross today with the promise that all your crosses will be removed One Day, and then the Word of God in Jesus’ body and blood given and shed for you in the Lord’s Supper strengthens you with life and salvation through the forgiveness of all your sins so that you can be preserved in body and soul until life everlasting. [And] this is given to you through God’s Word and Sacraments regardless of what you may be encountering in this life. In the midst of your struggles, you may look as lifeless as Jesus did on the cross, but actually, through Jesus, you’re as alive as He is now after His resurrection.
This, then, is why you can “delight yourself in the Lord” as we confessed in our Introit for today from Psalm 37(:4). It can be difficult to delight in the Lord when life is harsh… when the struggles seem to come one right after another… when your faith is being tested by life and by those who you thought were your friends, but they turned out to be against you.
But, your delight in the Lord doesn’t result from everything in this life going well, or even from you having the possessions and life that you want. Instead, your delight in the Lord results from the fact that He took up His cross for you so that you can have life… even in the midst of the sufferings of this world. You delight in the Lord because Jesus has given you the sure and certain promise that the crosses of this life are only temporary, but the glory of His empty tomb is eternal.
Of course, we haven’t reached that point yet where we see the glory of the empty tomb. But, that Day IS coming. Until then, we live under the cross of Christ. To the rest of the world, the cross of Jesus is, at best, a nice piece of jewelry, and at worse, a symbol to be despised. But to you, the cross of Jesus is the source of your life. The cross of Jesus tells you that your salvation has been completed. All your sin, guilt, and shame were paid for by Jesus when He took up His cross for you. [And] because of what Jesus did for you, He’s given you all that you need to take up your cross and follow Him because following Jesus through the cross means eternal life for you. Amen.
Now the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in our crucified and risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
8/30/26 St. John Beemer
