Hi there! This is not a new chapter from my book nor a short story but rather a faith-based musing. I know some people in my subscriber base might be a little surprised to received something like this in their inbox, but I had this on my heart and felt led to share it. We should be returning to our fantasy-based posts soon!
One of the struggles of being a lifelong churchgoer is that there are biblical concepts so entrenched that I take them for granted. There are tons of theological truths that have come crashing down on me suddenly in my 20s and 30s, truths I feel dumb for not having understood earlier.
It’s like a word you use because you’ve always heard the word in context, so you more-or-less know how to put the word into a sentence, but if someone were to ever ask you to define the word, you’d either try to use the word in the definition (never do that, it’s annoying) or you’d just come up blank.
The meaning of “take up your cross” finally hit me after hearing it all my life, and yet I’ve been using it in conversations with friends and even old students of mine. Embarrassing.
To the Bible!
Matthew 16 is the source of the phrase. This is the same passage that “get behind me, Satan” comes from. Context is important, y’all. I encourage you to read the full passage yourself, but a quick summary is below:
Jesus jukes yet another attempt from the Pharisees and Sadducees to trip him up, and then he has to explain to his disciples (again) that sometimes he uses metaphors, which are sentences that mean two things at once, and sentences are these strings of words with meanings to them. (Jesus literally says, “How are you not getting this?” at one point.)
Then, Jesus asks them, “Who do people around here think I am?” The disciples give a variety of responses, all of them fairly mystical but no where close to who he really is.
Jesus asks who they, the disciples, think he is, and good ol’ Peter pipes up with, “You’re the Christ, Son of the living God.” While the other disciples might be thinking suck-up, Jesus blesses Peter and makes some pretty big statements about the church.
Then, things take a turn. Just after telling Peter that he will be the rock on which Jesus will build the church, Jesus turns around and rebukes the snot out of him. Reason being: Jesus has told the disciples yet again that they are barreling toward Jesus’ suffering and death and resurrection, and Peter says, “Never! We won’t let that happen to you, Jesus ol’ pal.”
And Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan.”
Ouch.
Peter, despite having the right answer about who Jesus is, has the complete wrong answer about what Jesus is here to do. And because he is wrong about that, he is speaking things to Jesus that are a hindrance and a temptation toward self-centeredness. If Jesus took Peter up on that… there would be no salvation for us.
Jesus then goes on with the following, which I won’t paraphrase but will quote:
“For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. […] If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
Jesus completes this passage with an assurance that he will be returning in glory someday, and that he “will repay each person according to what he has done.”
Y’all.
I am guilty of butchering the meaning behind this phrase and using it in the most pathetic, self-pitying of ways.
To get a little personal, I have chosen to live a celibate lifestyle. I’m not always thrilled about it, but I am confident it’s God’s will for me. But I have often referred to this denial of self, this sacrifice, as my “cross to bear.”
“Yeah, I’m going to be single for life, and it’s a struggle. But you know, Jesus tells us to ‘take up our cross.’”
Hopefully, you are smarter than I’ve been and already see the glaring issue here.
Jesus did not say in Matthew 16, “Take up your temptation,” or, “Take up your sin-problem,” or, “Take up your self-centeredness.” He said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Follow him where? Hm. Let’s see… what did he just yell at Peter about? Oh right. His literal upcoming persecution and death.
See, I am just as bad as the disciples. I wonder how often Jesus has looked at me and said, “How are you not getting this?”
I look so hard to see myself and my struggles and my answers in scripture, and there are plenty of times God does show me that. But so much more of the Bible is not about me.
The cross carries plenty of symbolism, but it was also a literal tool of torture and execution.
Jesus carried his cross, knowing what it would do to him, part way up the hill to his crucifixion, aided by a man named Simon when Jesus could not carry the cross any longer (almost certainly due to the extreme torture he had been put under).
He carried the very thing that would be the death of him, and he did so willingly, as long as his mortal body would allow.
And he commands us to take up our cross and follow him.
If we are carrying a cross, then we’d better be ready to be nailed to it.
This same conversation between Jesus and his disciples is recounted in Luke 9, but the phrasing is a little different. Luke pens Jesus as having said, “let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
That says to me, “Every day, when you get up and go out into the world, take your cross with you. Be ready to die to yourself, your wants, your desires, your needs, to follow after me for the sake of others.”
And yes, that’s a metaphor. But I don’t think it’s just a metaphor.
Let’s also remember the why here. Everything that Jesus does, and everything he instructs us to do, comes down to the two greatest commandments (Matthew 22):
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
That’s it. That’s everything. That’s the cross. Biblical love is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling. It is not affection or attraction. It is always an act of sacrificial service.
John 14:15-17 has Jesus saying, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Jesus Christ took up his cross and died on it in perfect obedience to God and in perfect love toward all humanity.
And he tells us to follow him. To be perfectly obedient to God and perfectly loving toward our neighbors.
Yet I still struggle with obedience. I still struggle with love. I still stumble and fall while carrying this cross, praying for the courage and willpower to see this walk all the way through.
I wonder if it’s Jesus, then, who comes from the crowd to help me carry my cross when I can’t do it myself any longer.
Totally feel this. It’s wild how something you’ve heard your whole life can suddenly hit you like it’s brand new. That moment of clarity with “take up your cross” really hits deep.