Sermon for August 30, 2026, Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 16:21-28 (Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 17—Series A)

“Shown So that We Can Follow”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

August 30, 2026

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text today is the Gospel lesson recorded in Matthew 16:

²¹From then Jesus began to show His disciples that it was necessary for Him to depart to Jerusalem and to suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be killed and to be raised on the third day. ²²And when he had taken Him aside, Peter began to rebuke Him, saying, “May God be merciful to you, Lord! This will surely not happen to You!” ²³But when He had turned, He said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are my stumbling block, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.” ²⁴Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If someone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. ²⁵For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his life? Or what will he give as an exchange for his life? ²⁷For the Son of Man is about to come in His Father’s glory, with His angels, and then He will repay to each person according to what he has done. ²⁸Truly I say to you that there are some of those who are standing here who will surely not taste death until they see that the Son of Man is coming with His reign.

          How do you go about showing someone something that is unknown to that person? I can show you something using words and gestures: “Natural Bridge in Virginia is a massive 215-foot-high rock bridge with an arched underside, surrounded by rock walls.” To better show you, I’d pull up a picture on my phone as I describe it. But to best show you, I’d have to take you to Natural Bridge so that you could experience it for yourself.

Masters and apprentices over the centuries have used this technique. The master blacksmith or carpenter or plumber or electrician would explain with words, then produce an example, and then finally, the apprentice would experience it hands-on as the master shows how it is done.

“From then Jesus began to show His disciples that it was necessary for Him to depart to Jerusalem and to suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be killed and to be raised on the third day.” While St. Mark, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used the word “teach,” Matthew, by the same Spirit’s guiding, wrote “show.” Was there teaching involved in showing the disciples that as the Christ, the Son of the living God, He would have to suffer, die, and rise again? Most certainly! That’s part of showing. But Jesus would show to His disciples what being the Christ meant in the doing—in His suffering many things, being killed on a cross, and on the third day rising from the dead.

Jesus’ disciples would not grasp what Jesus had said to them until after the plan was carried out. The plan, which seemingly made no sense to the disciples, flew in the face of what their minds were set on. We heard the confession of St. Peter last Sunday, to which the Eleven gave their assent: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So, if Jesus is, as they believed, the Anointed One, the man who is uniquely God’s Son, and if He is going to go to Jerusalem, He should go in triumph to be received as the Messiah, the Son of God. If Jesus is God’s Christ, then let there be an end to the defeatist talk about suffering and death. God’s way in the world and His reign as King should obviously entail what looks like success, should they not? Only if we are setting our minds on the things of man. Jesus will not go up to Jerusalem to triumph (in the thinking of men), but rather, He will suffer there, and be killed, and on the third day, rise again.

The “triumph” of Palm Sunday was the prayer of God’s people that the Christ should go to the suffering and death of a cross to save the world from sin, death, and the devil. “Hosanna,” means “Save us, we pray.” And that salvation could only come about if Jesus suffered for the sins of the world in the place of world, appease the wrath of God against sin, and shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins.

This plan of salvation, this merciful action of God in sending His only Son to be the Savior of all people, was shown to the disciples through the teaching of Jesus and in the actions of Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, after Peter had cut the ear off the high priest’s servant, Jesus asked, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matt. 26:53-54 ESV). Of course He could have. Jesus is God, the Lord of hosts, Yahweh of armies! But it was necessary for our salvation that Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God, offer up Himself as the once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world. Listen to the promises of God’s Word:

Romans 6:10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

Hebrews 7:27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 9:26 He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Hebrews 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

          To be the Christ meant that Jesus would take up the cross for us and win our forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus, the Son of the living God, had to yield to those who opposed Him and suffer the unjust fate of suffering and death in the place of sinful humanity. Only in so doing, by God’s design, can God’s people, all people, and all creation be saved from sin and death. But after dying, Jesus Christ rose to eternal life on the third day. He is the Victorious One over sin, over Satan, and over death itself. The path could not be changed or interrupted. Our salvation depended on it.

          For this reason, those who belong to Jesus and follow Him will, in fact, follow in this world the same path. “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If someone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his life? Or what will he give as an exchange for his life?’”

          Jesus would go to Jerusalem to suffer the punishment that your sins and mine merited us. He would endure hell on the cross and be forsaken by the Father. He would bleed crimson blood to cover our sins and make us white as snow. He would die, be buried in the grave, and on the third day be raised again. For Jesus, there was crossbearing, loss of life, and finding life again. Jesus showed His disciples, both then and today, that there is a parallel crossbearing, loss of life, and finding of life—our life in Christ! Like apprentices, we follow our Master Jesus and take up our cross and find our life by losing our life for Jesus’ sake.

          To deny ourselves means that we will not assume or believe that God’s way of working in the world will conform to our expectations or definitions of success or glory. It means living without the “put me in charge and I’ll set things right” attitude of one who sees himself or herself better than others. Jesus calls every Christian to look at the darkness within, at the desire for power over others, and to deny that desire whenever and wherever it shows its ugly head.

          Sounds easy, right? Hardly. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s impossible. Your sinful nature and mine are turned inward toward the self, only cares about the self, thinks only about the self, and lives only for the self. Jesus’ command to deny ourselves is completely contrary to what you and I want and desire by nature. We often have in mind the things of man and not the things of God. That’s what it means to be sinful and unclean by nature. And if we’re only thinking primarily about “me, myself and I,” are we seriously going to be willing to suffer on behalf of someone else, not to mention enduring suffering because of being a disciple of Jesus? The command is to deny self and to take up our cross—to relinquish control from the beginning, to acknowledge that our life will entail hardship precisely because this is God’s way of reigning graciously in a rebellious world, not paying back evil with evil, but evil with good.

          But we don’t, in and of ourselves, have the ability to carry do what Jesus asks. “Try harder” only leads us deeper into despair and hopelessness. The harder we try to save our lives the more we end up losing our lives because we fail. We sin. And giving up leaves us condemned to punishment. We gain the whole world and lose our life to death and hell. “What will a person give as an exchange for his life?”

          There’s nothing that you or I can give, nothing in value equivalent that we can give to save ourselves from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. And that is why Jesus walked the road of suffering, death, and hell for us. He showed us what it means for Him to be our Christ and Savior.

          Because Jesus is the Christ who suffered, died, and rose again, you and I receive the forgiveness of all our sins. We are forgiven for thinking the things of man and not the things of God. We are rescued from death and from the power of the devil. We are given a new life of faith in which we are empowered by Jesus Himself to do the very things that were once impossible for us to do— to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. Only Jesus’ crossbearing can empower our crossbearing. Only Jesus’ death enables us to lose our life for Christ’s sake. And only through Jesus’ resurrection do we find our life again—here and hereafter.

In the daily struggle against sin, we take up our cross in the power of our Baptism. In Baptism, we daily die with Christ and rise again with Him to new life. We deny ourselves as the sinful nature in us is drowned and dies. We lose our old lives and God in Christ gives us a new life. A new person arises daily in Baptism to live before God in the righteousness of Christ. In faith, by the power of the Spirit through the Word, you and I follow Christ. We are enabled even to endure suffering for the sake of Christ, no matter what form it might take in our world—hostility, mockery, or persecution. Our life is in Jesus, no matter what. We have eternal life as a present possession. And even if we should be killed for the name of Jesus, we have life in heaven with the Lord, and resurrection life in body and soul when Christ comes again.

Jesus the Christ went to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and rise again from the dead. He showed us that He is our Lord and Savior through what He suffered, which was all for us. He rose again from the dead, giving us forgiveness and eternal life. Through Holy Baptism, Gospel Word, and Holy Communion, Jesus gives us and strengthens in us saving faith in Him as Savior and Lord. Through His grace, He enables us to follow Him as we deny ourselves and take up the cross through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen.