Carrying our Cross

Luke 9:18-27

As we continue walking with Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem we encounter his revelation to the disciples of who he is.  He is with the disciples praying with them in private and asks them who they think he is.  Peter says You are God's Messiah.  He tells them not to yet tell this to anyone.  It is at this time that Jesus reveals to them that he must die.  He then goes on to tell them what this means for them as followers and students of his.  This text can seem to be a riddle, mysterious and hard to decypher.

23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of themwhen he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
27 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”  

What does all that mean?  What does it mean to take up your cross.  What does it mean to save your life by losing it?  To save your life by losing it can actually be seen as an interpretation or further explanation of what is meant by "take up your cross."  In the first century the cross represented death.  Think of it as the electric chair or the needle.  When I think of being required to carry a cross to your own execution it reminds me of a parent having a child go get the belt for their "spanking."  It is a walk of shame, of dread, of fear.  This was what the cross represented for those hearing Jesus's words in the first century.  To carry a cross meant to die.  So how do we die to self?  We must remember that Jesus came to establish a new kind of Kingdom.  The type of King the world expected was a military conqueror.  Jesus was the opposite.  He came teaching a different kind of ruling.  He came teaching love for all.  He came teaching peace.  He came teaching love not only for friends but for enemies as well.  To carry ones cross is to die to the old ways of ruling and to take on the characteristics of Christ.  We must remember this daily.  It what ways do we still seek the old ways of ruling the old definition of Kingdom.  We are reminded here in verse 27 that we don't have to die to experience the Kingdom of God.  As Jesus says in the model prayers "thy kingdom come.......on EARTH as it is in heaven."  

There is yet another mystery in this passage.  In the midst of talking about losing yourself, dying to self, Jesus says "what good is it for someone to gain the whole wold, and let lose or forfeit their very self?"  That seems a contradiction to the rest of the passage.  Perhaps what needs to die is all the pretensions we put forth in order to fit into this world.  I recall sitting outside one day about 21 years ago in the pits of depression coming to this very revelation.  I was living the way others expected me to live.  I was "religious."  I was "following all the rules."  but I was not fully being who God created me to be.   I was living into others' expectations of what it meant for me to be a Christian, to follow Christ."  I was denying who God created me to be and in the process I was slowly and literally dying.  I weighed 105 pounds, you could see every rib in my body, I couldn't eat and my therapist had told me she was going to see me in a hospital bed soon.  That day, sitting out in the son I committed to be me.  If not I would literally die.  It was time for me to live into God's expectations of me and no one else's.  With all this in mind I would suggest that the cross represents putting to death all other expectations of you except the expectations of God.  Live into who God created you to be!  Follow the lessons of Christ, not the lessons of the world.  In doing so you might just get a glimpse of Heaven without even tasting death.