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Get your own, Free HomepageToday we continue our Lenten sermon series, "Forty Days to Spiritual Fitness," with part 2: "Cross Bearing: The Essential Exercise for Christian Discipleship." Now often, when we think of` physical exercise, we think in terms of something that we plan ahead to do...something scheduled into our week. Go to the gym on Mondays and Thursdays. Or walk twice around the park every other day. Plan on rollerblading Sunday afternoon (plan an emergency room visit Sunday night!). Whatever!
But as the leader of our Sports & Health ministry, Vicky, likes to say: "every activity is a potential workout!" That's certainly true when it comes to the exercise of our Christian discipleship. Following Jesus is not something we can do every other day or when we feel like it or when its convenient! It's an everyday, every situation proposition. And that can be hard to accept.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes the news of the hardest things in the world to face and deal with can come in a single sentence? Like when your dentist looks into your mouth and says to the assistant, "Please cancel my next three appointments and bring me the high speed drill...with several extra bits." Or you take your car in for an oil change and the mechanic comes back and says, "Did you notice that crack in the engine block?" Or your partner sits down somberly and says, "We need to talk." Or your doctor comes in and says, "The test results aren't good."
In a single sentence, today's Gospel reading hits us with perhaps the hardest news possible in terms of our relationship with Christ. Jesus spells out the heart of discipleship in a single sentence: "If you wish to come after me, you must deny your very self, take up your cross and follow in my footsteps."
"Take up your cross and follow me...." What does that mean? Anyway you slice it, it doesn't sound like a party invitation, does it?! Anyway you look at it...it's going to be difficult.
In order to understand what those words really mean, we first need to dispel some widespread misconceptions about the idea of "cross bearing." The cross referred to here is NOT the trials and tribulations of life that assail everyone. It isn't even some particularly difficult circumstance or affliction. In modern times we could experience anything from a painful, chronic physical condition to living on a noisy, pothole-ridden street and we say, "Thatsjust my cross to bear, I guess."
We will always have trials and difficulties and, as Christians, we are asked and empowered to face them with the right attitude and with faith and with determination. But trials and difficulties are not "a cross to bear."
We tend to use the expression in that watered-down way because its literal meaning is so remote from our experience. In the Western world, capital punishment is now rare, and it's difficult to even paraphrase the saying in terms of our ordinary experience. For us, the "cross" has become a worship symbol and a popular item of jewelry...often worn, interestingly, by drug-dealers and street gangs - a fashion mis-statement. But the cross used to mean something very different.
There was a time when capital punishment was carried out publicly. The sight of a person being taken to the place of public crucifixion was not unfamiliar in the Roman world of Jesus' day. The condemned criminal was led through the streets on foot or dragged on a cart to the place of execution, and the crowds who watched this grim procession knew what lay at the end of the road. A person on their way to public execution was compelled to abandon all earthly hopes and ambitions. They often were forced to carry the crossbeam themselves and, at the place of death, they would be nailed to it by the hands and placed onto the vertical post which created the upright cross. That is the picture which Jesus' words would conjure up in the minds of his listeners then.
It's hard to apply these words of Jesus' - "take up your cross" - to our lives today...unless we look at the rest of the sentence. "If you wish to come after me. you must deny your very self, take up your cross and follow in my footsteps."
Many years ago, in the old west, a somewhat stingy man decided to take a trip by stagecoach. He went to the ticket office and noticed that there were three different ticket prices for seats on the stage. There were first, second and third class tickets. But all the seats on the stagecoach looked the same to him, so he bought a cheaper third class ticket and climbed aboard. The stage rolled along, and after awhile, the man was congratulating himself on his wisdom in purchasing a less expensive ticket. At that very moment, the stagecoach pulled up in front of a steep hill. The driver looked down at the passengers and shouted, "First class passengers may keep their seats. Second class passengers will get out and walk up the hill, and third class passengers will get out and push!"
These difficult words in our Scripture reading today have to do with what it means to be a "third class passenger" - that is, with the "get-out-and-push" aspects of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It's so much easier to hear - and to preach - about the comfort and the benefits of being a Christian, but today's Gospel compels us to think about the demands of being a follower of Christ in our world.
With "cross-bearing," as a disciple today, there is the directive, "...deny your very self...and follow in my footsteps." We often speak about the compassionate side of Christ. In these words come the demanding aspect of Jesus. It's always been characteristic of great leaders to make rigorous demands upon their followers. Joshua said to the people of Israel, "Choose this day whom you will serve." Garibaldi in Italy offered his followers hunger and death - and Italy's freedom. Winston Churchill, as British Prime Minister in the difficult days of World War II, promised his people "nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
Yet, in comparison, Jesus Christ is a thousand times more demanding than any of those great Ggures of history. Jesus has no sympathy for people like the young woman of our own day who went to her doctor and said, "What can I do to feel better without giving up what's making me feel so awful?"
What does it mean when Jesus tells us to "...deny your very self...and follow in my footsteps."? First, here's what it doesn't mean. It does not mean we deny who we are. God made each of us unique and special. God made us as we are...knows us as we are...and loves us as we are. Jesus isn't saying to throw away what God has made.
"Deny your very self" is also not referring necessarily to denying ourselves of "things." Although there is certainly nothing wrong with limiting our participation in the narcissistic, hedonistic, materialistic culture in which we live, that is not the self-denial of which Jesus is speaking.
To "deny your very self" is to take ourselves off the throne of our lives and allow Christ to truly be Lord. It's learning how to say "no" to ourselves when it comes to the temptation to place our own momentary desires ahead of Christ's call to discipleship. It's about putting self-discipline ahead of self-satisfaction. It's about putting commitment ahead of convenience. It's about putting the cause of Christ ahead of our favorite charity, "me."
Once a young man moved into the apartment below where Lorraine and I were living. We introduced ourselves - I think we even took him some cookies that first day. After that, we passed each other occasionally and said, "Hi! How's it going?" - that sort of thing. Nothing more.
Then, one night, I was coming in around 8:30 from a long day at the church, and he was waiting for me. He came out and stopped me on the stairs and asked if I could talk with him. I guess he had heard from some friends that I was a pastor at M.C.C. He had been through something very difficult that day, and he was really shaken up about it. I said, "Sure," and I sat down on the stairs and listened for a while. Then, when he had talked enough to feel a little better, he said, "I'd like to come to your services sometime."
We talked about that, too, but I have to tell you that, inside, I was burning with embarrassment and remorse. You see, I had never told him about the church, much less invited him to attend. I told him - and myself- that it was because I didn't like to be pushy with people. And that was true...to a point. But the full truth was that I had wanted to "protect" myself and my privacy and my freedom to be "just another person" at home. I didn't want to have to be seen as "the pastor" while going out to do our laundry or be stopped for spiritual advice while bringing in the groceries!
When I was "outed" and he asked for my help, though, what I discovered was that I felt so grateful that I was there to listen and that God allowed me to be used...even though I had "hidden" Christ so that I could come first. In spite of that, when I stopped worrying about "me," I ended up being blessed. I guess that's what Jesus meant when he said, "If you try to save your life, you'll lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you'll save it."
I dare say that not many of us here are in any danger of literally losing our lives in the service of Jesus Christ. Few of us will even encounter any real hardship. But perhaps we need to seriously ask ourselves, "What if I were asked to truly carry the cross of Christ to a hard and dangerous place?" The fact is...few of us are even willing to be inconvenienced...let alone to give up our lives. If the going actually gets tough...will we keep on going after Jesus?
Following Jesus is not something we can do every other day or when we feel like it or when it's convenient. It's an everyday, every situation proposition. "Cross bearing" is the essential exercise for Christian discipleship. And we need to be aware that every activity is a potential workout! Amen.
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