Chocolate Shavings

One of our homeletics (preaching) professors talks about chocolate shavings in the sermon writing process. Whenever we preach, there is bound to be material that just can't find its way into the sermon but is still good. Like when a chocolate bunny is made, there are shavings left over from when the bunny's figure is formed. It is still perfectly good chocolate, it just isn't necessary for that bunny. Here are some chocolate shavings from the sermon I'm currently working on. The passage is Mark 8:31-38.

In the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, we see God reaching into humanity. Wanting to be in solidarity with us. To reconcile humanity in our broken condition. This is God’s great gesture of love. God’s way of saying “yes” to humanity. Martin Luther says that through Jesus on the cross, we are liberated to become “imitators of God.” Not as a requirement for righteousness, but as a response made in love. When we understand the love of God, we respond with love.
When Jesus calls us to pick up our crosses and lose our lives, he’s telling us that to follow him requires radical discipleship. But it isn’t just to follow. Not just to be with Jesus. It is to do as Jesus does. Mimicking, imitating the actions of Jesus. When Jesus says to pick up our cross, he is calling us to stand up against the wicked forces that oppress. Those forces that cause poverty, suffering and injustice. That is the cross Jesus calls us to pick up and bear alongside him.
These crosses are heavy and burdensome. They are filled with splinters that pierce our skin. But as we pick up these crosses we are abiding with Christ. Christ beckons us to join him in the work for justice and peace. We have a mutual responsibility that as Christ comes to be in solidarity with us, we are asked to bear crosses to be in solidarity with him. As we look to Christ on the cross, standing in opposition to the wicked forces of his time, we are strengthened for the task of standing up to the wicked forces in our own day. As we pick up our crosses and bear the resulting suffering, we know that we are abiding with Christ. Amen.