Sermon – Mt. 16:24-26
23 June 2023, service on Victory Day
Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Mt. 16:24-26)
The modern individual needs to feel good – to have all their wishes fulfilled and their needs met. This is supposed to result in a better and happier person and society. This is supposed to lead to peace.
In reality, focusing on individual well-being has not necessarily meant that people have become much better. I feel that, instead, we have grown more hostile, even belligerent, towards each other. This can happen when the heart loses the longing for a higher authority, for nobler ideas or pursuits. The highest authority of the modern time is the individual, their desires and their right to have these desires met. What the individual wants is the norm for them. However, this can give birth to autocrats who dominate over everyone else, and it can pave the way to dictatorships. Already, we can observe the results of the human desire to rule over nature. It has led humanity to the doorstep of a self-destructive environmental disaster. We can also see how difficult it is to change this desire to dominate over nature. If economic growth is weighed against conservation of nature/creation, the need for growth and profit, as well as individual well-being, still outweighs the care for creation. Ruling over creation, the human being has assumed the role of a dictator, instead of being a steward.
In the greater scheme of things, it does not matter how a dictatorship establishes itself, whether by being the loudest or relying on majority, having the strongest fist or taking advantage of the silence that supports the rule of the fist. We can easily see how the regime in Kremlin attempts to impose its will in Ukraine. Regrettably, this is done with support from the patriarch. The trends towards imposing one’s will by force are, unfortunately, noticeable even in many societies that regard themselves as democratic and European. One does not necessarily need to reach for weapons of war in order to impose one’s will. Even in our society, there are too many autocrats who like to dominate over their family members in their homes. Acting like this with impunity creates a feeling of being a god.
In today’s Bible passage, Christ expresses concern for the souls of the people acting like that when he asks, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mt. 16:26) He also provides us with an instruction: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mt. 16:24)
Working for higher ideals and standards of liberty, and acting in accordance with the word of God in particular, involves renunciation of one’s own desires, overcoming temptation, and enduring difficulties and suffering. This is what Jesus describes as taking up the cross. Christ’s own mission was accomplished through pain, suffering and death. Without that, there would be no redemption and we would have no hope of eternal life.
A similar path of being patient in bearing one’s cross through hardship and suffering has been traversed by the Estonian people as we gained our independence. This occurred during the War of Independence, but not only then. Wherever and whenever the people have suffered, be it under repressions of foreign rulers and various hostilities, we have been patiently bearing our cross. We never gave up because we had hope. Hope that we will eventually win our freedom, as well as hope that God will not abandon us. Why else would He preserve us through centuries, against all odds? This is why we have now a better understanding of the price of freedom compared to many other nations who have never lived under the yoke of occupants. Our plight has made us spiritual relatives of the Ukrainians because we as a people, too, have felt the weight of chains and have worn the boots of refugees.
But we also have the experience of victory, hope and freedom, which we can share to encourage Ukrainians, but also Belarusians, for instance. Even in the midst of suffering and death, there is a lot of hopeful will to live, which helps guide the way to freedom. Whoever places their hope in God cannot be broken by evil alien forces, even in the darkest of dungeons.
In the past one and a half years, we have seen innumerable news reels of shelled cities and destroyed homes, kindergartens, schools, hospitals, churches, and other establishments in Ukraine, in addition to fields covered with bomb craters and forests of crosses on newly opened cemeteries. The present-day generations in our peaceful Estonia find it hard to imagine how people can still live amidst all of that. Trying to live as normal a life as possible. Can there be any speckle of joy, laughter, happiness or hope left?
My father was a child of World War II. Seeing planes flying over their farmhouse was among his first childhood memories. His contemporaries have also told stories about how they were playing as children in the ruins of bombed Tallinn or other Estonian cities. Telling these stories, they have sometimes, almost coyly, admitted that they had fun playing, even in these circumstances, and that the hours spent with their peers were moments of joy in those otherwise dark times.
The fact that someone was born in a cellar where the family sought shelter from shelling, or in a carriage of a deportation train heading towards the unknown, or amidst a foreign reality in Siberian exile, or anywhere else under a criminal regime, did not mean that the new life, faced with the prospect of inhuman hardship, did also not bring a lot of joy. Someone who is able to keep their emotions alive in such a situation is never broken or defeated. They are alive! A people that can laugh through tears is not doomed. Quite the opposite, such a people is a winner! This has been the Estonian experience that we can celebrate on this Victory Day. This joyful hope of victory is also something we can share with our Ukrainian friends.
In the Scriptures, we can find several affirmations that the rhythm of the created order will continue, regardless of what may come – people continue to be born and die, get married, sow, harvest and store the seeds. The Creator himself has promised continuation for all of this, when he said after the end of the destructive flood, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Gen. 8:22). God sealed his words of peace with the rainbow in the sky. Let us remember that whenever we see a rainbow – it means that God promises us peace.
We can celebrate or not celebrate any anniversaries, even Victory Day, but we should not forget to be grateful for our freedom to those who made it possible for us to enjoy it. We should not neglect giving thanks to our friends and allies who help preserve and defend our freedom today – in Estonia, in other Baltic countries, and in Ukraine.
But faith in Jesus Christ gives everyone who believes the courage to stay true to their ideals, their fatherland, and their people. It is all part of the cross that we have to bear. And as we think of all dictators, authoritative rulers and perpetrators of violence, we can be assured by the words of Jesus, “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” (Mt. 16:27) Amen.