Take up the Cross

Jesus submitted to a shameful death on the Cross, and he summons us to follow his example and path.

Jesus tells us that if we wish to be his disciple, we must “deny ourselves, take up his cross, and follow him.” This was more than metaphorical language when he made this pronouncement on his final journey to Jerusalem. In the City of David, he would demonstrate just what it means “to take up the cross.”

At Caesarea Philippi, the Nazarene began to tell his disciples about his impending ordeal:

• “From that time began Jesus to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from you, Lord! This will never be! But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you care not for the things of God, but for the things of men. Then said Jesus to his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake will find it” - (Matthew 16:21-25).

The Greek term translated as “must” in the preceding quotation represents the verb ‘dei’ (δει), meaning, “it is necessary, ought, needful, obligatory, it must happen.” This points to Christ’s messianic mission. He was under divine compulsion to walk into a situation that he knew would result in his unjust death.

[Cross - Photo by Luke Mollet on Unsplash]

Peter took great exception. The very idea of a suffering Messiah was contrary to popular expectations. No devout Jew would tolerate even the suggestion that the King of Israel might suffer death at the hands of Israel’s greatest enemy, Rome, or that the priestly authorities would be complicit in the plot to murder the nation’s Messiah and Deliverer.

Recognizing Satan’s influence in Peter’s words, Jesus rebuked him. The name ‘Satan’ is derived from the Hebrew word often translated as “adversary.” The Devil was using Peter to thwart Jesus from following the path his Father had chosen for him.

As he would show at Gethsemane, death by crucifixion was not what Jesus desired, though, in the end, he submitted to it and thus “denied himself,” knowing it was the will of God (“Not my will, but yours be done!”). It was at this very point that the Devil attempted to steer Christ away from his mission, namely, when he declared his determination to the disciples to enter Jerusalem regardless of the consequences.

But an incorrect understanding of what it meant to be the Messiah would also produce an incorrect understanding of what is required to be Christ’s disciple. Just as God called His Son to self-denial and suffering, so the Messiah exhorted his disciples to do likewise. His call to take up the Cross and follow him applies to every disciple.

This does not mean every follower of Jesus will be persecuted or suffer martyrdom. However, his use of the Roman cross to illustrate how one is to follow him would certainly have shocked his first-century audience. For them, crucifixion was a repugnant image of suffering and shame.

THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Nothing symbolized the power of Rome and its oppression of the Jewish nation more than crucifixion. Yet rather than use his power and fleeting popularity to liberate Israel from the Roman yoke, Jesus laid down his life for his friends and foes alike.

Execution by crucifixion was a form of capital punishment inflicted on the lower classes, especially rebellious slaves. Romans were so horrified by it that citizens were exempt from crucifixion (Roman citizens convicted of capital crimes were beheaded). To follow Jesus in that way meant submitting to something offensive to Jewish sensibilities and feared by the Gentile world.

• “Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified; for Jews a stumbling block, and for Gentiles, foolishness; but for those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” – (1 Corinthians 1:22-24).

In the Greek text of the passage from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus uses the present tense form of the verb translated as “follow” to stress ongoing action. “Let him keep following after me.” This was not a call to pick up the cross just once but to do so repeatedly. The version of his words in the Gospel of Luke stresses the point by adding the word “daily” – (Luke 9:23).

The image of a disciple taking up the cross would have provided Peter and the other disciples with a graphic and grim picture. Even more so since the Roman practice was to force the condemned man to carry the same cross on which he would be killed to the place of execution.

Despite Christ’s explanation and Peter’s strong rebuke, the disciples could not grasp what following Jesus would entail. Later, after the “sons of Zebedee” asked to sit on either side of Jesus, “when you come in your Kingdom,” the Son of Man responded, “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”

Instinctively, John and James replied, “Yes! No problem. We are well able. Bring it on!” However, they had no idea what he required of them:

• “You know that the rulers of nations dominate them, and their great ones tyrannize them. But it will not be so among you. Whoever would become great among you will be your servant, and whoever would be first among you will be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” - (Mark 10:42-45).

Jesus used his impending death to illustrate the point. The Greek term translated as “servant” in the preceding passage referred to household servants who waited on tables, a lowly position most often assigned to a slave, and the Greek noun translated as “slave” means exactly that, a slave.

Hence, the Messiah of Israel was summoning his followers to serve others in ways viewed by the world as menial and humiliating, but only in such ways could they hope to become “great” in his Kingdom.

Christ’s description of the Son of Man who gave his life to ransom others echoes words of the Book of Isaiah that describe the ‘Servant of Yahweh’ who suffered for his people:

• “Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has put him to grief, when you will make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and the pleasure of Yahweh will prosper in his hand. He will see the travail of his soul, and will be satisfied. By the knowledge of himself, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” – (Isaiah 53:10-12).

To follow Jesus necessitates humility, self-denial, and self-sacrificial service to others. This is not optional. As Jesus warned, the man who “does not take his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me. He that finds his life will lose it, but he that loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Thus, to follow Jesus of Nazareth requires us to live cruciform lives of service, both as individual disciples and collectively, as his Assembly.

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SEE ALSO:

• God's Power and Wisdom - (The power and wisdom of God are revealed in the proclamation of the Messiah who was crucified by the Roman Empire)

• Counting the Cost - (To follow Jesus requires a lifetime of self-denial and sacrificial service for others and a willingness to lose everything for the Gospel)

• In His Kingdom - (Jesus proclaimed a unique political reality, the Kingdom of God, one that differs radically from the governments and ideologies of this present age)

• The Mind of Christ - (The submission of Jesus to an unjust death is the pattern of the love and service to others that his disciples are called to imitate)