Take up your cross and follow me
Readings: Matthew 16. 21-28
We often assume that the way to life is through more. We’re taught from a young age that to enjoy life we need stuff, be it material things, relationships, activities. To find life you must gain, to define yourself you must gather. And we’re so used to that that Jesus’ call in today’s Gospel sounds a bit of a discordant note in us. To find life you must lose, lose even life itself.
We’re following on directly from last week’s Gospel reading where Peter makes that amazing declaration of who Jesus is; the Messiah, the Son of God. And after some declarations about Peter and the church Jesus instructs his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah.
That seems rather odd doesn’t it. Surely they should be shouting it from the rooftops so that more people will come and follow Jesus. But, as we continue to read, Peter, who has made this amazing declaration based off all he’s seen and heard, immediately gets the wrong end of the stick about what Jesus being the Messiah actually means. And if Peter can get it wrong, how much more would the crowds do the same.
Because, whilst Peter has recognised Jesus as the long promised Saviour, his vision for what that means is very different. Peter, and most of his contemporaries, would have envisioned the Messiah as being all about violence and victory, a saving from the Romans, whereas it’s actually about suffering and service and sacrifice.
Peter isn’t happy with Jesus’ vision for the Messiah and his mission. Perhaps because it simply doesn’t fit, he’s recognised the Messiah but this isn’t how it’s meant to be, get with the program Jesus. Perhaps though it’s because he already recognises what Jesus is about to tell the disciples, that the fate of the Messiah will dictate the fate of his followers. Perhaps Peter’s vision for himself is one of glory, of victory but that’s dependant on the Messiah being in that mould. If the Messiah dies, then likewise that same fate awaits his followers. If the master is killed, so will be the servants. Perhaps it’s not just concern for Jesus driving this, perhaps not just an impulse to preserve his vision of the Messiah, perhaps it’s an attempt to preserve his own life from the same fate Jesus is predicting for himself.
Jesus is clear though. The Messiah must go to Jerusalem, must suffer, must be killed and on the third day be raised. This is the divine plan, this is why Jesus has come, this is his purpose. To become the sacrifice for sins, to bear the punishment for our wrongdoing, to ransom us from death and hell.
And Jesus will not let anything get in the way of this, not even the one he has just declared the rock, who has immediately become a block to be stumbled over. Jesus rebukes Peter, commanding him to get behind him, not just in rebuke, but back to his proper place as a follower, as a disciple, not as one who is calling the shots.
And Jesus then turns to his disciples and tells them that in getting behind him (Jesus uses the same word to Peter and the disciples) themselves as his followers they are to take up the cross and follow him. If the Messiah is to die, so must they. For in the Saviour dying the way to life is opened, and in their sharing in his death, in taking upon themselves the cross, they will find that life.
It’s from this passage that we’ve coined the term, bearing the cross. Perhaps you yourself or someone else has been talking about their hardships and then add ‘but we all have our crosses to bear’. Such usage isn’t what Jesus has in mind here. We’ve inadvertently undermined the force of what he is saying. Jesus isn’t talking about the hardships of daily life, the struggles which we share with the rest of the world. Because the reality of these words in the 1st Century couldn’t be more different. To take up your cross was to die. To see someone bearing the cross through the streets was to see someone whose life was forfeit, and who would soon meet their end. To follow the Crucified Saviour is to risk martyrdom ourselves. All those listening to Jesus with the exception of John would die for their faith. Our brothers and sisters across the world this very day face that same reality, the reality that today they might be killed for the name of Jesus. Are you willing to lay down your life, your soul, the very reality of who you are, so that you can follow me asks Jesus.
This is one of the things I love about Jesus, he never waters things down, never masks the realities of following him, he’s always upfront, always clear because he wants people to make an informed choice. And Jesus challenges our assumptions about this life on all sorts of levels and here he challenges our most fundamental instinct, that of self-preservation. Will you deny yourself even that for the sake of the Saviour.
Now, none of us, God willing, are likely to face martyrdom for our faith, Jesus challenges us to be willing to, should it arise, but for us in our day, in this place, it’s unlikely to happen. So what else is Jesus challenging us about here?
Well Peter’s vision for the Messiah was one who would gain, who would raise an army or insurrection, who would drive out the occupiers and gain the land, who would restore the freedom to worship, regaining their identity. And Jesus says no, my mission will look like loss. So too it is to be for us, we’re not to be occupied with gain, but prepared for loss.
The state of our world is as though we have all fallen into a pit. Through our sin and selfishness we have stumbled and fallen down into a dark pit. We can see the light at the top and we assume that the only way to it is to climb up to reach it.
We might attempt to do so with material wealth, gaining more and more things to give our life meaning, to get closer to the light. Our possessions and wealth heaping up into a mountain to climb upon to escape. We might try through our relationships, attempt to find our every desire and need met through those we surround ourselves with. Those around us becoming a human pyramid to lift one another out of the pit and into the light. We might take the attitude that the only way to survive is every person for themselves. Everyone and everything else is a means to an end, we’ll climb over everything, push everyone down in a mad scramble to reach the light. We might think that to reach the light is to do good, to be a good person or to be religiously pious. Our good deeds and righteous behaviour being woven into a ladder through which we and others can escape into the light.
None of it works, the light still eludes us, the higher we attempt to climb the deeper the pit seems.
So how do we escape? Well along comes Jesus, and he jumps down into the pit with us. Crazy, now he’s stuck down here too, and then he turns to you and says, I’ve been here before, let me show you the way out. We don’t need a Saviour who is preoccupied up in the heights, to whom we can aspire, no, we need one who has descended to our depths, so that he can show us the way through. Because the way out isn’t up. It’s down. Whilst the world scrabbles to climb up Jesus reveals that the only way is down, down into death, down into sacrifice, down into suffering.
Jesus dies, descends into death, so that he can break through the other side. He invites us to follow him, down through death and out of the other side. Because the life we could have had, the light at the top of the pit, we’ll never reach it, instead Jesus invites us to a new and better life if we lay down our lives to find it.
That’s why the Gospel is foolishness to the world, that’s why it makes no sense. The world see’s the light and thinks it can reach it, it’s only a matter of time. Us lot retreating from the light seem mad, but we’re heading for the truer and greater light, the truer and greater life.
So what does that look like? Surrendering all. Surrendering all this world holds dear, our time, our finances, our resources, our possessions, our relationships, our priorities, our loves. Surrendering all of this to Jesus and saying not my will but yours. Handing it all over to Jesus so that he can give our life back to us as he would have it, richer and greater than we could ever have imagined.
That’s not to say life will be easy and we’ll get everything we want, that’s not what sacrifice means, it’ll be hard, it’ll be challenging, in many ways it’s the way of suffering and struggle and death. But it’s also the way of life and hope and peace. What we surrender to him we gain back infinitely in himself.
And that’s not to say we can’t enjoy things, trips to the beach, a pint with friends, a new outfit. But are we holding them loosely, as we should, prepared to surrender them should Jesus call. Is our fundamental instinct about preserving our life the way we want it, or about faithfully following Jesus?
In following Jesus, the one who dies for us, we are to be like him, willing to die ourselves. Will you surrender all in love and trust to him? Will you give up the very reality of yourself, that he might remake you, giving you his life, both now and in eternity. It’s a tough question, but Jesus asks it out of love for us, he doesn’t want us to be uninformed, but he assures us that, should we choose to follow, it will be worth it.
Amen.