Take Up Your Cross

Jesus Christ spoke some of the most radical words that have ever been uttered in the history of the universe. But it is not just what He said; it is the fact that these words passed through the lips of the one who is the God of the universe. That gives what Jesus said gravity and weightiness that is not there if a mere man speaks them. But Jesus is no mere man: He is the man who is also God.
Among the radical words of Jesus Christ are these: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). These words hold particular weight because Jesus is laying out for us what it really means to be one of His followers.
What Jesus says in that verses goes totally against popular thinking today about what it means to follow Jesus. In the modern church in America there is the mindset that to follow Jesus simply means that you go to church more Sundays than not; you give a little bit here and there; you don’t have any scandalous sin in your life that others know about; you and your family and your kids try to look somewhat normal and adjusted; you help out a little bit at VBS and other things at the church; you own a Christian t-shirt and a couple of contemporary Christian CDs; you cautiously invite a person to church every Christmas and Easter; you pray on occasion and read the Bible now and then; and you are overall satisfied with how you are living the Christian life. That is the picture of Christianity in our society today: it is a cozy picture; it looks like Norman Rockwell painted it; it is a safe picture where there is little or no risk involved in it. And with these words Jesus destroys that picture.
The call to follow Jesus is a call to deny self. The idea here is not of denying things, but of denying yourself. It is the total renunciation of self. This is you and I ceasing to make life about us and placing Jesus and not you at the center of your life. That is difficult to do because everything within you (other than the Holy Spirit) wants you to live for you! We are by nature self-centered and self-focused. But the call to follow Jesus is the call to live as if you do not exist. That is how we are to deny ourselves: to live as if we simply do not exist anymore.
But Jesus does not end there: He then says take up your cross. Taking up one’s cross is not some minor irritation that is in your life that you must bear. It is not something that just makes life inconvenient for you that you have to endure. I have heard people say things like, “My boss is so unreasonable. He is always on my case and gripes and complains about everything that I do. I guess everybody has their cross to bear and he is mine.” Those things are called thorns and not crosses. Thorns hurt and irritate and you really want to get rid of them because they are very uncomfortable. Crosses will kill you.
A cross is a means of death and suffering, not inconvenience. Jesus is calling for self-execution here; not just a denial of self, but a death to self. When you take up your cross you will die to self and you will live as a dead man.
The Apostle Paul understood this. He wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Paul is saying that he is dead, but Jesus is alive and well living within him and now his life is lived by Jesus and for Jesus.
Then, and only then, Jesus says, “Follow Me.” If you are not denying yourself and if you are not taking up your cross then you are not following Jesus. Because it is doing the first two things (the denying and the dying) that frees you to truly follow Him.
Many people today feel this kind of “radical” Christian living that Jesus is referring to here is reserved for the super-saints and the real spiritual people; people in the ministry or people that are missionaries. We think that this passage and these demands are meant for someone else and it is not really meant for “normal” Christians like us. But Jesus says that this is normal Christian living. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to call radical what Jesus calls normal.