Perspective: That Whole "Take Up Your Cross" Thing

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

That Whole "Take Up Your Cross" Thing

I had made up my mind not to think about anything while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and to preach him as crucified.

1 Corinthians 2:2 (CEB)

Lead me to the Cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord, I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Oh, lead me
Lead me to the Cross

From "Lead Me to the Cross" by Brooke Fraser

In the Gospels we read that one day Jesus starts speaking rather ominously to His followers.  Specifically, He tells them that, once they reach Jerusalem, He will "undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again."¹  The disciple called Peter, who has just declared that he believes that Jesus is the Messiah,² does not like what he is hearing, so he takes Jesus aside and tries to set Him straight.  Jesus says to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."³

What Jesus then says to the people following Him is something all people with the audacity to call themselves Christians need to start taking seriously.

First, Jesus says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."⁴  Like Peter, many of Jesus followers believe that He is the Messiah, their long-awaited liberator, and they expect Him to be a conquering king like His ancestor David.  Jesus has come instead to be a "suffering servant" who takes up a cross instead of a sword, and He wants everyone to know that truly following Him will mean doing the same.

Jesus continues to call us to take up our crosses and to follow Him.  Nobody takes up a cross, whether it is literal or figurative, without being crucified on it in some way.  Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once famously claimed, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."⁵  If we truly follow Jesus, we might not have to literally lay down our lives as Jesus will, but we will surely have to let go of some of the things that are important to us, like our expectations, our preferences, and our comforts.

Next, Jesus says, "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."⁶  I would like to suggest that these seemingly paradoxical words are perhaps a warning that we must not hold on too tightly to our lives as they are.  When Jesus first announced that "the kingdom of God has come near," He also called people to repent.⁷  The Kingdom of God is unlike any kingdom of this world, so, if it has indeed come near as Jesus says, then we need to be willing to rethink everything, because everything is going to change.  We cannot receive the abundant life Jesus offers us if we are clinging to our lives as they are.

I would also like to suggest that Jesus' words might be a warning that, if we start thinking that we have something to lose, we will inevitably act in ways that are contrary to the way of self-sacrificial love Jesus calls us to follow.  The way of this world is the way of self-preservation and even self-aggrandizement, but followers of Jesus are no longer of this world.

Jesus then asks rhetorically, "For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?  Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?"⁸  In two of the Gospels, we read that, shortly before Jesus began His ministry, the devil showed Him the kingdoms of this world and said to Him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."  Jesus replied, quoting the Hebrew Scriptures, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him."⁹  Jesus could have chosen the path of conquest, but He would have inevitably lost Himself.  Instead He has chosen the path of service and self-sacrifice, which He knows will lead Him to a cross.

In the words of one early Christian thinker, "God is love."¹⁰  If we worship any god who isn't love itself - a god like power, money, or influence - we will forfeit our souls and sacrifice our neighbors in service of that god.  If we worship the God embodied by Jesus, the God who is love itself, we will love our neighbors and give of ourselves in service of God.  The path of self-sacrificial love, the path Jesus calls us to follow, is the path that truly leads to life.

Finally, Jesus says, "Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."¹¹  Peter doesn't like hearing what Jesus says about taking up a cross, because he wants to be on the winning team.  Only losers end up getting tacked up on crosses.  Later on, after Jesus is arrested without putting up a fight, Peter will deny even knowing Him.¹²  Luckily, Peter will see the light, and he will continue to follow the path Jesus has shown him.

I suspect that a lot of people who claim to be Christians are a lot more ashamed of Jesus and His words than they want to admit.  I suspect that a lot of them would like a savior who didn't get crucified.  A number of pastors have reported that people in their congregation have started calling some of Jesus' teachings as "weak" and dismissing them as "liberal talking points."¹³  One so-called "pastor," who evidently likes to portray Jesus as an "ultimate fighter," once felt the need to tell his hearers that "Jesus will never take a beating again," as if the Cross was a one-time embarrassment Jesus had to endure¹⁴ and not a revelation of His character.

Jesus still calls us to deny ourselves, to take up our crosses, and to follow Him.  He still calls is to serve our neighbors, not to dominate them.¹⁵  He still calls us to love our enemies, not to destroy them.¹⁶  The call to take up one's cross is no easier for us to hear than it was for the first Disciples, but anyone who refuses to take up their cross is not following Jesus.


Notes:

1. Mark 8:31 (NRSV)
2. Mark 8:29
3. Mark 8:32-33 (NRSV)
4. Mark 8:34 (NRSV)
5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  The Cost of Discipleship (translated by R.H. Fuller and Irmgard Booth).  ch. 4
6. Mark 8:35 (NRSV)
7. Mark 1:15
8. Mark 8:36-37 (NRSV)
9. Matthew 4:8-10 (NRSV)  (See also Luke 4:5-8 and Deuteronomy 6:13.)
10. 1 John 4:8
11. Mark 8:38 (NRSV)
12. Mark 14:66-72
    
13. Tori Otten.  "Christianity Today Editor: Evangelicals Call Jesus 'Liberal' and 'Weak.'"  The New Republic, 08/10/2023.
14. Mark Driscoll.  "Thug Jesus."
15. Mark 10:45
16. Matthew 5:43-45

The photograph of the crosses was taken by Lubos Houska and has been been released into the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Perspective: The Spirit of the Law

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Spirit of the Law

Then [Jesus] said, "The Sabbath was created for humans; humans weren't created for the Sabbath."

Mark 2:27 (CEB)

If everything comes down to love
Then just what am I afraid of?

From "Hope Now" by Addison Road

In the Gospels, a major point of contention between Jesus and the religious leaders of His day is the matter of how one should observe the Sabbath Day.  One of the Ten Commandments states, "Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy.  Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  Do not do any work on it..."¹  Observing the Sabbath Day is extremely important to Jesus' people.  Religious scholars even went so far as to compile detailed lists of actions prohibited on the Sabbath Day.²  Jesus and the religious leaders clash because they have different ideas about what is appropriate to do on the Sabbath Day.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we read that, on one Sabbath Day, some religious leaders catch some of Jesus' disciples picking wheat to eat.³  Harvesting and preparing food are among the actions forbidden on the Sabbath Day.⁴  Any food eaten on the Sabbath Day is to be gathered and prepared ahead of time.  To the religious leaders, these disciples are in violation of the commandment to observe the Sabbath Day, so they confront Jesus about His disciples' behavior.  Jesus responds by appealing to Scripture, recounting instances in which people break religious rules out of necessity and are not considered guilty for doing so.⁵

Later that day, Jesus goes to the local synagogue, where there happens to be a man with a deformed hand.  Trying to entrap Jesus, the religious leaders ask Him if He thinks the Law of their religion permits acts of healing on the Sabbath Day.⁶  In their eyes, acts of healing are off limits on the Sabbath Day.  Medical attention may only be administered if a person's life is in immediate danger.⁷  The man with the deformed hand is clearly not in such a situation.  Jesus responds to the religious leaders by appealing not to Scripture but rather to reason.  First He asks rhetorically, "Who among you has a sheep that falls into a pit on the Sabbath and will not take hold of it and pull it out?"  Next He proclaims, "How much more valuable is a person than a sheep!"  From these two points, He reasons, "So the Law allows a person to do what is good on the Sabbath."  Jesus then proceeds to heal the hand of the man in the synagogue.⁸

I think that these confrontations between Jesus and His detractors highlight the importance of understanding the spirit of the law as opposed to merely knowing the letter of the law.

It is important to consider the context in which rules are made.  The Ten Commandments, including the prohibition against working on the Sabbath Day, were given to the people of Israel while they were camped at the foot of Mount Sinai.  Just a few months earlier, they lived as slaves in Egypt.⁹  There, they were treated not as human beings but as machines, and merely asking for a break would be rewarded with a greater workload.¹⁰  The Sabbath Day was a gift from God to the people of Israel.  It upheld their humanity and reminded them that they were worth more than what they produced.¹¹

The Sabbath Day does not exist to prevent something that needs to happen from happening.  It does not exist to ensure that animals that fall into pits on that day remain trapped.  It does not exist to prevent hungry people who do not already have something ready to eat that day from being able to obtain food.  It does not exist to prevent people in need of healing from being healed on that day.  It does not exist to make people's lives more difficult or more complicated one day per week.  The Sabbath Day exists to prevent people from being dehumanized and exploited.

Later in the Gospel of Matthew, we read that one day a religious scholar with ulterior motives asks Jesus which commandment in the Law of their religion He considers the most important.  Jesus replies, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself."  Interestingly, Jesus then says, "All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands."¹²  Jesus is telling the religious scholar that every instruction in their Scriptures is a derivative of the commandments to love God and to love their neighbors.  He is essentially revealing the spirit of the Law.

A lot of Christians act as if the instructions in the Bible exist merely to be followed and enforced.  Jesus teaches us that the instructions in the Bible exist specifically to help us to love God and to love our neighbors.  This means that any prohibition in the Bible is meant to prevent us from harming our neighbors.  If we fail to keep in mind the reason that the teachings in the Bible exist, we run the risk of applying them in harmful ways.  If we really want to follow Jesus, then we must read Scripture as He reads it and put our focus on love.


Notes:

1. Exodus 20:8-10 (CEB)
2. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume Two.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  pp. 25-26
3. Matthew 12:1-2
4. Barclay, p. 25
5. Matthew 12:1-5
6. Matthew 12:9-10
7. Barclay, p. 34
8. Matthew 12:11-13 (CEB)
9. Exodus 19:1-20:21
10. Exodus 5:1-18
11. Rob Bell and Don Golden.  Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for a Church in Exile.  2008, Zondervan.  p. 34
12. Matthew 22:34-40 (CEB)

The painting featured in this perspective was painted by Ferdinand Oliver around 1840.