Hi hunnies, I'm home!
In this week’s gospel lesson (Mark 8: 27-38) Jesus’
announcement of his own impending death is a warm fuzzy place for the preacher
to focus. Not that Jesus’ death was in any way warm and fuzzy. In any sane system
of movie rating, Mel Gibson’s The Passion
of the Christ would have been rated NC-17. However, focusing on Jesus’
death, and particularly on the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ death, it is
entirely possible for the preacher skip the much more difficult portion of the periscope: the demand that the believer take up his/her own cross.