[Adapted from my sermon on September 14, 2025]
What a world. Will the tragedies and heartbreak ever end? Will mankind ever tire of the bloodlust we have in our hearts so full of hatred and violence? It was 23 days ago that a Ukrainian refugee, a defenseless woman who was minding her own business in her seat on a train, was senselessly and inhumanely attacked and murdered. We cannot even begin to imagine what kind of madness moves a human to do that to another. It was 24 years ago just this past Thursday, September 11, that the equally inhumane attacks took place in New York and on our nation’s capital. Planes flown into buildings. Innocent people attacked and murdered. This past Wednesday another attack on our kids in a school in Evergreen, Colorado. More senseless, inexplicable violence. What is the mental illness that moves these individuals to continue to copycat the hatred of others in attacking children in schools?
And then perhaps last, but not least, was the very public murder of a father of two, a husband of a loving wife, an individual who built a career on using words, not violence, to dialogue and debate with others. Charlie Kirk. What happened to him is of particular interest to us here in the Lord’s house this morning. He was a faithful Christian man, and that’s a fact. Perfect, no, but none of us are. He was vocal about his faith, praise the Lord. It was just recently he posted on social media “Jesus defeated death, so you can live.” And I’m not suggesting his death is more important than any others who lost their lives who maybe weren’t Christian or who maybe weren’t as vocal about their faiths. But it is of note, to us, because its hard to argue that the hate directed against him was in no small part directly because of his Christian faith and his public confession of that faith in his beliefs and opinion. That should affect us all.
It should affect us all because of what Jesus Himself has said. As our Lord prepared on Maundy Thursday evening to go to the cross, and as He was preparing His own disciples for that incredibly difficult day, He told them this in John 15: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (vv18-19)” Our Lord’s words were quite clear to His disciples then, as they continue to ring true to this day: to Love the Lord, to follow the Lord, to walk in the Lord’s ways, is also to draw the hatred of the world as the world first hated Him.
Why does the world hate Jesus? Why does the world hate His followers? Jesus says it: You are not of the world. I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. To follow Jesus is to be of the truth. And the father of lies, the devil himself, and all who follow him hate the truth above all else. To follow Jesus is also to love, to genuinely love, to sacrificially love, and once more, the great deceiver, Satan himself wants nothing more than for us to be like him and to be selfish, to take for ourselves, and to think of no one else.
To follow Jesus is to be not of this world. He has called us and chosen us in our baptism and through the Gospel to be different. I love the motto that Concordia Ann Arbor has been using on their billboards and other media in recent years where they say “Live Uncommon.” That’s it. You are not of this world. You are called to be uncommon, to be different. This is good, because it means we are of Christ and His Kingdom instead. We are set free in Christ to love like He loves and to live like He lives. But yet, this means the world will hate us for it. They will fight against us because of it, even with violence. But we are here to make disciples of the people of this world that they too may know the love of Christ and leave the devil’s hatred and violence behind.
I am so thankful that today is Holy Cross Day because it is the perfect image for today, it is the perfect image for our time and for every time in this world as we await our Lord’s return. The cross reminds us that we are a people called to be like Jesus and His Kingdom. While we live in a world that all but worships indulgent pleasure, personal autonomy, self pride, the cross is the opposite of these things. The cross shows us self-sacrifice and a greater love.
Jesus teaches us and lives for us and shows us the way of the cross. In fact, He spells is out just a few moments before His words I shared earlier. Just mere verses before Jesus tells His disciples that the world will hate them as the world hates him, in John 15:13 Jesus told them “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Let those words forever be etched in your hearts and in your minds, especially as you pray and you think and you go about living in this heart-broken world.
It is also mind-boggling to think, that as Jesus describes this greater love, as Jesus spells out how He is about to lay down His life for people, for all mankind in fact, that the very next thought to this greater love is how much the world will hate Him and His followers. That is the way of the cross.
It is almost inexplicable, but this reminds us of the offensive nature of the cross. It would seem that to the ways of the world and the ways of our sinful hearts … everything about the cross is offensive. Why does Jesus have to lay down His life on the cross? Well it is because we are sinners. We are proclaimed and labeled to be poor, miserable sinners, and the cross reminds us of it. And what’s worse, it is evident that all the sickness, all the suffering, all the hate and the violence and death in the world, all exist because of our sin as well. It’s all my fault, and the cross reminds me.
At the same time, while the cross may offend the sinful human nature, it is also the very sign of hope and salvation for the child of God. To look upon the cross is to look upon the Crucified Christ, to look upon our Savior. The very image of the cross that is an image of death for sin, is also the image of life in Christ.
To put this another way, consider what happened to Moses and the Israelites in Numbers 21. It quite a powerful passage in its foreshadowing of Jesus and the cross. The Israelites grumble and complain against the Lord, they sin clear as day. The Lord God sends fiery serpents into their midst as judgment upon their sin and many are bitten and die. The people repent of their sins and cry out to the Lord. And then what does the Lord God do? He instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent upon a pole that when anyone who is bitten by these fiery serpents can look upon this image, and they may live. The very image of their death with the serpents, is now the image of life for them when they look upon it and believe God’s Words.
Jesus Himself draws a connection to this moment from Moses’ day. Jesus highlights the importance of the Israelites looking up in faith at the image of the bronze serpent. In John 3:14, Jesus tells us “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” Jesus must be lifted up. Lifted up high upon the cross. This image of shame and sin and death in the cross, is now the image of our salvation and life in Christ. And of course its not just an image. The cross on Calvary is the very location of our victory, so it is fitting that we honor it, and cherish it. Not that we worship the cross itself for in that very wood was nothing special. Neither were the Israelites in Moses’ day to worship the bronze serpent. The cross is just a wooden cross. But lifted up upon the cross, lifted up for all to see, lifted up for all to believe in by faith is Christ our Lord, and in Him we follow always.
What once brought death, through God’s grace, now brings life. This the wonder and mystery of the cross, that death can turn into life. That all the world can seemingly be turned upside down. And in a world so full of everything that is down, that is evil, that is hate, that is violence … we need Christ crucified on the cross to turn it all into life.
And this is precisely what Jesus promises. In our wonderful Gospel text from John 12 this morning, we hear our Lord teach with such an image of death and life. Its the image of the grain of wheat. Our Lord says in John 12:24 “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Or as a wise theologian once put it “All death can do to the believer is deliver him to Jesus (MacArthur).”
All glory be to Christ, who has conquered death … and will make all things new again. Amen.
Mark Witte is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church.
You can contact him at pastorwitte@gmail.com
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