St. Andrew's Lutheran Church and Campus Center
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Martin Luther on the Gospel for Quinquagesima
Take Up Thy Cross and Follow Me
"Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished." (Luke 18:31) The right way to reach a true knowledge of Christ's sufferings is to perceive and understand not only what He suffered, but how it was His heart and will to suffer. For whoever looks upon Christ's sufferings without seeing His heart and will therein must be filled with fear rather than joy, but if we can truly see His heart and will in it, it gives true comfort, trust, and joy in Christ. Such will to suffer He reveals here in the Gospel, when He declares that He will go up to Jerusalem in order to be crucified, as if He spake, Behold My heart, and see that I will endure My suffering freely and gladly in obedience to My Father's will, so that you must not be afraid nor terrified when you behold My sufferings and think that I bear them unwillingly, that I am compelled to endure them and am for- saken, and that the Jews have power to do this to Me. But the disciples did not understand His meaning and the Word was hidden from them. This shows that reason, flesh, and blood cannot grasp nor understand that the Gospel should tell us how that the Son of Man must be crucified. Much less can they perceive that such should be His will and that He did it joyfully. It is such a great and wonderful thing that the Son of Man is crucified willingly and joyfully in order that the Scriptures should be fulfilled, that is, for our good. It is and it remains a mystery.(Sermon from the year 1525. W.A. 17. II.173 f.)
