Tuesday
Tuesday
Taking Up the Cross
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mark 8:34
It seems to me very remarkable that Jesus moved on from referring to his cross to referring to ours. It appears that somehow he already knew that he was going to be crucified. Now he says that if anyone wants to follow him, he must take up his cross. We cannot fail to observe the same note of necessity.
What did Jesus mean? According to H. B. Swete in his commentary on Mark’s Gospel, to take up the cross is “to put oneself into the position of a condemned man on his way to execution.” If we had lived in Roman-occupied Palestine in those days, and if we had seen a man carrying a crossbar, or patibulum, we would not have needed to run up to him and ask, “Excuse me, but what on earth are you doing?” No, we would have recognized him at once as a condemned criminal, because the Romans compelled those they condemned to death to carry their own cross to the place of crucifixion.
This was the imagery that Jesus chose to illustrate the meaning of self-denial. We need to rescue this vocabulary from being debased. We should not suppose that self-denial is giving up luxuries during Lent or that “my cross” is some personal and painful trial. We are always in danger of trivializing Christian discipleship, as if it were no more than adding a thin veneer of piety to an otherwise secular life. Then prick the veneer, and there is the same old pagan underneath. No, becoming and being a Christian involves a change so radical that no imagery can do it justice except death and resurrection—dying to the old life of self-centeredness and rising to a new life of holiness and love. Paul was elaborating Jesus’s vocabulary when he wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20) and, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).
One final thought: Luke added the adverb daily to the saying of Jesus: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23, emphasis added).
For further reading: Romans 8:12–14