“Take up your cross and follow me.”
No thank you. That doesn’t sound like fun.
For the folks in Jesus’ time, hearing this statement may have made them think about all the governors of the provinces who were using crucifixion as a means of terror and control. Rebels who were made to carry their own cross beam to their own crucifixion where they would hang until they suffocated to death.
If I was a disciple at that time and heard Jesus say to me “take up your cross and follow me” I may have had two concurring thoughts in my head:
- - No! This can’t happen to you. You are the Messiah … you are our Saviour! And,
- - Wait, what? I have to go through what you’re going to go through? Ummm, I’m going to need to think about this.
Did Jesus mean it literally?
I don’t know, maybe. Or maybe he was alluding to what we talked about a few weeks ago near the beginning of this campaign: the call to shift our gaze.
Shift our gaze away from this world and toward the divine world.
Taking up our cross and following Jesus may not mean torture and death; it may mean unpopular choices, not fitting in, or standing out. It may create some sacrifice in our lives because we are living toward the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of empire.
“Take up your cross and follow me” … into a world where the economy is love and the model of living is justice.
Okay.