“Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”
Matthew 16:24
It is just into the first century. The roads are dusty, the work is back-breaking, the nights are long. The religious leaders are corrupt, and the Roman Empire rules the region with an iron hand. Taxes are exorbitant and punishment is cruel. Beheading, strangling, being buried alive, and among the worst: crucifixion. Being hung on a cross. The people are afraid, looking for a savior.
A man called Jesus has risen from among them and has garnered a following. He teaches in the Temple, raises the dead, makes the blind to see, and feeds thousands from five loaves of bread and two fish.
The people begin to have hope, especially the twelve who are His constant companions, those He’s taken under His wing.
But He begins to talk of suffering. That He “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Luke 9:22
And then He drops a bombshell.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
Those with Him look around at one another with a stunned and confused look on their faces.
Take up our cross? Daily? What is he talking about?
Jesus would predict His own death two more times. He would lead the way.
Still, His friends couldn’t grasp what He was saying.
The night comes and He is betrayed by one of them and dragged before Herod Antipas, the son of Herod of Great who was responsible for killing all the boys under the age of two when he heard that men had come to worship the one who was born King of the Jews. Herod Antipas sends him to Pontius Pilate, and Pilate sends Him first to be flogged, and then to the cross.
Jesus carries His cross until near collapse from exhaustion and pain. He is nailed to it, and lifted up to a punishment reserved for the worst of criminals. A punishment designed to not only torture and kill, but to shame and send a message to all those watching.
His friends scatter. Their minds are reeling from the events they’d just seen. They think back to the time Jesus said they must take up their cross.
Are we next?
Darkness comes over the land. Jesus dies and is buried in a tomb.
And that is that. Hope is lost. Death is the end.
But then the morning of the third day comes.
It is evening now and the disciples are gathered together in a room with the doors locked for fear of facing their own torture, grieving over the death of their friend and the hope He’d given them for a better life, when suddenly they hear –
“Peace be with you!”
It’s Him! Wait..is it? Is it a ghost? No! It’s Jesus! And their joy comes flooding back.
And again –
“Peace be with you!”
They laugh and hug and rejoice, and they realize death was not the end.
It was only the beginning.
Maybe the understanding about what He meant by denying themselves, taking up their cross and following Him came as slowly to them as it does to us. But He had given them a stark picture.
It doesn’t mean reluctantly accepting a disease, or a difficult relationship. It doesn’t mean sacrificing any one thing.
It means dying. To everything.
Sacrificing oneself.
Willingly, wholeheartedly, just as He had done.
The word Jesus used when He said “deny” themselves is aparneomai – to deny utterly. To disown.
If we want to follow Christ, to be His disciple, the only way is to follow Him all the way to the cross. Not a literal cross, of course, but a cross for the flesh, the self will. It is saying to the Father what He said in the garden: “Not my will, but yours be done.”
Christ might have in mind for us to go and do and say what we wouldn’t dare. Will we follow? Will we die to our desires, let go of our fears, and go with Him?
Dying to our wishes and desires, giving up the life we had in mind, is not the end!
There is the glorious morning. A new beginning.
It is the beginning to a bigger, better life than we had ever imagined. Infinitely bigger than a life of catching fish.
We will become fishers of men, and women and children and neighbors and family.
When we walk with the risen Christ, we are filled with Life ourselves, and all that He is and has for us.
Peace be with you!
with this image of Chris Fields and Miss Baylee Almon that was taken, unbeknownst to him, on April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma City bombing.