THE CROSS OR LOSS
Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciples must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels (Mark 8: 34-38).
Discipleship, according to Jesus, is an all-or-nothing transaction. Following Jesus is not like joining a club or a cause. Sign on the dotted line, pay your subscription for another year and you’re in. This time He didn’t have a private conversation with the Twelve; He went public to make sure that everyone understood the implications of His call.
At this point He had not yet extended an invitation to the crowd to join His band. In fact, He discouraged some of them who wanted to follow Him for the wrong reasons. “Foxes have dens and birds have nests,” He told would-be disciples, “but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Was this an allusion to His poverty or His nomadic lifestyle? We could interpret it that way if we did not understand the Hebrew way of speaking.
Foxes don’t live in dens; nor do birds live on nests. That’s where their babies are born. This was Jesus’ way of telling people that He did not yet have a body upon which to place His head. His disciples were being trained to reproduce Him in others as they lived and spread the good news of the kingdom of God, but something had to happen first. Jesus had to die to reconcile the world to the Father. Sin was the great barrier between God and man. Jesus came to clear the way so the God’s alienated children could be restored to the family.
Jesus had just reassured His disciples that they were the flagship of the church – His body – which would be born on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured on once again. Head and body would come together in an unbreakable union to begin the process of reproduction.
However, there was a condition to this process of discipleship without which it would not work. Jesus could not take on board people who came with their own agenda. Following Jesus meant ditching their own plans, putting to death once and for all any ambitions other that being absolutely one with Him.
Taking up the cross does not mean being resigned to our fate. We sometimes think that our cross in life is some responsibility thrust on us, some disability or disadvantage we can do nothing about or some relationship that is like a noose around our necks.
That’s not what Jesus meant. Taking up the cross is voluntary. It’s what He calls His disciples to do but the choice, in the end, is ours. Like the rich young ruler, we can also walk away and lose the opportunity to experience real life in fellowship with Jesus, or we can identify with Him, embrace His will and walk with Him in obedience and self-sacrificing love on our journey to the Father.
This kind of commitment is life-long and demands a “dying”. Paul even declared that it was a daily dying. Have you ever tried dying when you are provoked, irritated, impatient, frustrated, angry, anxious, or afraid? That’s where the rubber meets the road. Taking up the cross means being “dead” to the world – non-reactive to the inconveniences, annoyances, interruptions, frustrations and temptations of life and alive to the presence of the Holy Spirit within. It’s a tall order but, if Jesus could do it, so can we. That’s what being a disciple of Jesus is all about. The Holy Spirit creates a union with Him so intense and intimate that we literally become fused to Jesus. He is in us and we are in Him. Our job is to foster and maintain that union by allowing Him to live His life through us.
There cannot be two wills at work in one person. It’s either my will or His will. It’s a choice I have to make, not once but a thousand times a day. Jesus said that the way to life is narrow. The path is littered with choices. There are many wrong choices and only one right one. Whose will am I going to follow, His or mine? I cannot give Him my will. That is impossible because God gave it to me as a non-returnable gift. I can only choose to do His will.
That’s what it means to follow Jesus – living in such intimacy with Him that we become one. Dead but alive! Nothing less!
Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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