Have you ever thought you were better at something than you really turned out to be? I pride myself on being a good, smooth driver, never spilling my coffee even on these hilly roads. Our driveway comes up from our house at a steep angle and it’s often difficult to exit without bumping around or spilling something you’re carrying. This past Wednesday we had our “Soup and Bread” supper, and Marcia made a large crockpot of potato and cheese and broccoli soup, piping hot. I was in a hurry, and put the pot in the front seat of the truck to carry to the meal. In the back of my head, I thought I should probably put it in a box or a cooler, just in case, but I thought “I can do this, no problem.” So I put one hand on the crockpot, shifted with the other hand and steered with my elbow. I made it past the driveway, down the road past Emmanuel, and came to the stop sign just across the street when a vehicle careened off the Milligan Highway and zoomed up the hill right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting this car, and a gallon and a half of steaming potato soup dumped into the floor of the truck! It did smell good, but it took forever to clean up. I ended up removing the entire carpet and having it washed at the Laundromat. I started out so well, but ended up feeling so stupid.
Peter thought he had all the answers and that worked for him for a while. Answers are easy to come by when there’s no pressure, no demands, nothing to lose.
I wonder if Peter thought he was a pretty sharp guy when Jesus asked the bonus question: Who do you say that I am? I know what all the others say—“He’s John the Baptist, He’s Elijah, He’s one of the prophets…but who do you say that I am?”
The rest of the guys scuffed their feet, or searched the heavens for a sign. Peter swung for the fences: “I say you’re the Christ, sent from God.” Yes!. Peter stood there with a stunned look on his face while he waited for the confetti to drop. “Now let me tell you what it means to be Messiah,” said Jesus. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Flush from his initial success, Peter took Jesus aside and, in Mark’s words that drip with an air of superiority, he began to chide Jesus. He explained in no uncertain terms that Jesus needed to get with the program; successful people don’t talk about suffering and rejection and death…their ratings were on the rise, their stock was never higher; now was the time to seize the moment, to go for the gold!
Jesus was livid. “Get behind me, Satan!” he shouted. “You mind is set on the things of earth, not the things of heaven.” He called the whole group together and said, “If any of you want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Peter, who had been so right just minutes before, got it miserably wrong here. But don’t be too hard on Peter. We wouldn’t have done any better, and probably would have fared much worse. Peter, who would be the leader of the Church, said it for us all. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: “From its very inception the church has taken offense at the suffering Christ. It neither wants such a Lord nor does it want its Lord to force upon it the law of suffering.”
Soren Kierkegaard said there is a big difference between being an admirer of Christ and a follower of Christ. Peter was an admirer of Christ’s—he marveled at his power, his authority, his teaching. He basked in the reflected glow of his fame. But could Peter and his fellow disciples become what Jesus really wanted…not admirers, but followers? “If any of you want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
For the first time in Mark’s account, Jesus told them plainly what he was up to…where he was going. Out of Galilee, all the way to Jerusalem. And from this point on, he didn’t want admirers. He wanted followers
“Get behind me, Satan.” Mark says Jesus rebuked Peter…that’s a word that describes how Jesus dealt with unclean spirits. I wonder if Jesus reacted so strongly because these were words he desperately wanted to hear. Jesus heard these comforting words coming from the mouth of a friend, but he recognized another voice behind Peter’s—the voice of one who had waited until a “more opportune time…” . Power without pain. Glory without humiliation. There was poison in these words.
Jesus called the whole crowd together and laid it out, “Listen carefully. If you miss this one, you lose. You flunk the whole course. You undo all the good you’ve been a part of.” If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? What can they give in return for their life?”
Nikos Kazantzakis captured the servant Jesus was looking for:
“My prayer is not the whimpering of a beggar nor a confession of love. Nor is it the trivial reckoning of a small tradesman: Give me and I shall give you.
My prayer is the report of a soldier to his general: this is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I found, this is how I plan to fight tomorrow.
My God and I are horsemen galloping in the burning sun or under drizzling rain. Pale, starving, but unsubdued, we ride and converse. “Leader!” I cry. He turns his face toward me, and I shudder to confront his anguish.
Our Love for each other is rough and ready, we sit at the same table, we drink the same wine in this low tavern of life.”
Two thousand years after Jesus charged us to follow, we still don’t know what to do. We avert our eyes, shake our heads, struggle to understand what it means to “take up our cross and follow.” So when Uncle Bill’s arthritis kicks up or Sally’s husband gets drunk again, we say, “I guess that’s their cross to bear.” Are crosses just hardships that drop on us out of the sky? Is this Jesus’ idea of cross-bearing—to simply endure the vagaries of life on earth? It must be more than that. Jim Street writes: “Crosses are those things that we deliberately take up as we deny ourselves and follow after the one who is known as the ‘crucified.’ Cross-bearing is a choice.”
1. The cross means death to our old way of life. The people in Jesus’ home area had seen neighbors, friends, people they knew nailed onto crosses for crimes against the Romans. They knew that the cross meant death. Where is he leading us? There’s only one way this can end. We’re going to die. No wonder the message was so unpopular. No wonder Peter took him aside with strong words. No wonder the church of every age has tried to make him say everything but what he said: You’ve got to follow me to the death.
The message of the gospel is that the old “you” has to die. You can’t save your life…you’ve got to lose it for him. “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:19-20). The cross of Jesus means death. When a grain of wheat is planted in the ground, it has to die. Only through death will it bring forth life. This is way of gospel; this is the way of Jesus. He doesn’t want to trim a leaf here or prune a branch in your old life. He wants the whole tree down. He doesn’t want to moderate your bad habits. He wants to put to death your old self and raise a new person up in its place. Put to death that illicit relationship, put to death that secret lust for riches, put to death the security that your portfolio brings, put to death your insatiable desire to be respected, looked up to, appreciated. Put to death your career goals. Put to death your need for comfort. Bonhoeffer said that when Christ calls you, he bids you to come and die…and after you have died to self, all other deaths are a minor occurrence. Carrying the cross means someone has to die.
2. Carrying the cross means you must be willing to suffer, to face rejection because of your faith in Jesus Christ. The cross is not the pain of a person’s bunion, it is not an economic downturn or the knocks we take because we live in a fallen world. Cross-bearing means accepting suffering because you have chosen to follow Christ.
A popular church teaching is that following Christ will solve all your problems. If you follow Jesus, all your problems will be fixed. Your wife will love you more; your job will suddenly become bearable; your bank account will grow. Those teaching don’t reflect in any way the teaching of Jesus. He said “If you follow me, you’ll probably get hammered.” If you adopt the ways of the world, you can go a long way without suffering: Meet force with force, get them before they get you, have it your way, speak softly and carry a big stick will carry you a long way.
But if you choose to carry the cross, you mark yourself as an oddball, a trouble maker, a hopelessly naïve dreamer who hasn’t figured out how things work. You will be belittled for not standing up like a man, for being ungrateful for what others have done, for not striking back when you had the chance.
Do you know any crossbearers? I know a woman in Africa who was frequently beaten by her husband because of her faith in Jesus. One night he started after her in a rage and she picked up her Bible and said, “You have beaten me many times and tonight you might just kill me, but before you do I want you to know that you’re not beating me because I’m a bad wife, because I haven’t loved you or cared for our family. You are beating me because of this book, and the God it represents. And if I have to die for this faith, then go ahead, because I have to testify that it is true.”
I know a cross-bearing woman in her 70’s who decided not to slow down and enjoy her retirement years in ways the world would understand. She left the comfortable worship of her church behind to work at an outreach to the hardest and toughest kids in our city. There she put up with insults, lip, and “I don’t care attitudes” that they might have an opportunity to share just a taste of the water of life.
I wonder what cross bearing means in a time of war? I just spent a week with a man…Milligan graduate…who was the Army’s head chaplain in all of Iraq…there he finished 30 years of service to Christ, ministering to men and women who were asked to kill and who were being shot every day. I know a couple who gave their adult lives to minister to those broken in mind and spirit by war…to those who tried to numb the pain, to those who couldn’t take it anymore. I know know a man who carried a sign protesting the violence in our world at a busy street corner in our city. A car rolled around the corner, the window came down and the driver pointed his finger at the demonstrater and acted as if he were firing off a couple of rounds. The sign said, “Peace on Earth.”
3. Carrying the cross means following in the footsteps of Jesus. How do you “lose your life for the sake of the gospel?” What could Christ do with a group of people who were willing to suffer, willing to face rejection for him? GK Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.” Jesus told Peter, “Get behind me!” And that’s where we belong…following along behind him. Follow him when the burden is light…follow him when you feel the weight of the cross. Follow him when you “get it,” follow when you don’t know the answers, when you don’t understand what he’s up to. Follow because you don’t trust yourself to walk the perilous, narrow, lonely, dangerous path to God.
In the end, Jesus isn’t looking for learners, admirers, supporters, even worshipers—he wants followers. Our job is not to guide or protect Jesus—we can’t use him or possess him, redirect or interpret him. In the end, all we can do is pick up our cross and follow.
John Calvin said: “…we are God’s; to him, therefore, let us live and die. We are God’s; therefore let his wisdom and will preside in all our actions. We are God’s; towards him, therefore, as our only legitimate end, let every part of our lives be directed” (Institutes III, 7.)
