Disciples Carry Crosses

Jesus said carrying crosses was absolutely mandatory for his disciples. If I am a disciple, where is my cross? If I am looking for true disciples of Jesus, I should see a cross. There is a version of "cross carrying" that is dramatic and glorifying and noble and heroic. We should be suspicious of "pretty crosses: that is not the cross of christ. Jesus' cross was humbling, messy, full of suffering, a cause for shame, and lead to death. The beauty of that cross is seen only by the Spirit, and only through the Empty Tomb. 

Suffering for Jesus

This is the 2022 K-Love Cruise. Picture this: a week with fellow believers, all you can eat buffets, open bar tab for all the… soda you can drink. Poolside, and concerts by your favorite Christian artists.

Maybe sounds a bit like heaven. I’m not going to lie, that sounds awesome.

We used to use a phrase “Suffering for Jesus”, usually sarcastically, when life was just so good. “Oh, I’m really suffering for Jesus!”

And no shade if this is your idea of an AWESOME vacation. A little getaway to restore and renew, an extended Sabbath, a year of Jubilee, enjoy the feasts, my friend. There is a time for feasting, just as there is for fasting.

I have never been on a K-Love Cruise, though I have been on a couple of cruises. Nice for a minute… but I don’t live there.

I remember some of my best times at Conference or Camp and wishing, oh… if I just could just live here, if it could always be like this. And it is possible to orient the Christian life toward maximizing exactly this feeling. Today more than ever. Get the best worship, the best Christian entertainment, the best speakers, and the best snacks, and call it church. Do that a couple times a week and call it a “Christian life.” Throw in some Scripture memorization and you are a devoted disciple of Jesus.

Is that what we are after? If we are to be and make “disciples of Jesus” we had better have a clear picture, a vision, of what we are being and making.

What are the marks of a disciple?

Marks of a Disciple

What are they so far?

Disciples follow. They hear the call of Jesus and they follow.

Disciples love. They love first, they love always, they love everyone.

Disciples abide and obey. We may be inclined to one or the other. To just “live and love and abide, man!” Or “obey the commands!” But to abide is to obey is to abide is to live and love like and with Jesus. Disciples do both, inevitably so as they follow Jesus and love as He loves.

… and Disciples carry crosses.

Every one of the gospels, twice in Matthew, twice in Luke, Jesus says something like this:

Luke 14:27 ESV

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

That’s phrased negatively, he states it in the positive. “Anyone who would follow me, pick up your cross.”

So, if you are a disciple of Jesus. And you’re following His call. And you’re loving like He loves. And you’re abiding and obeying.

For us as we are first being disciples of Jesus… and for our disciples as we are making disciples of Jesus… where are the crosses?

What does it actually mean, actually look like to “bear your own cross.”

Noble Crosses

To be clear, I don’t know this dude, I don’t know his heart, but the picture is too perfect.

A cross… on wheels, by the way, carried in front of a cheering and celebrating crowd.

I get that Jesus transforms the shame of the cross to glory… but that is not what Jesus’ disciples would have understood him to be saying. Jesus could have told them “Take up your cross… don’t worry, I am going to make it look good. I’m going to make it easy on you. By the time I am done with crosses, everyone will WISH they were carrying them!”

That isn’t what they heard at all.

My favorite metaphor for “cross carrying” is if we stood up and said “Everyone pick up your electric chair and follow me!” There’s nothing glorious or clean about an electric chair. It is a form of capital punishment, used to kill criminals deemed to dangerous, too awful, or even irredeemable.

Even if what you were attempting to do that sent you to the chair was admirable, the fact that the story ended in an electric chair fundamentally means you failed. You failed. It is a mark of failure and shame, aside from the suffering along the way.

This is what Jesus is calling his disciples to.

But there is a modern twisting of “cross carrying” that would turn it into something noble and performative.

Maybe, in this dude’s heart, this is a beautiful and sincere act of worship and the optics are just unfortunate. I don’t know.

But if you are doing what you are doing to impress “them” (whoever “they” are, even if they are good Christian folk)… you aren’t carrying a cross. You are putting on a show.

If you are doing it to be great or successful by any worldly definition of great… you aren’t carrying a cross.

And I am not content with some trite version of this.

Jesus’ disciples who heard this, the world who heard this, the most uncomfortable I have ever been, they might call it a Tuesday. They were well acquainted with everyday suffering and struggle, the toil of work, the stress of life, poverty, survival, family drama, school drama, work drama, the “stuff” of life. They knew all that stuff, but it was SHOCKING news to them that they should pick up a cross and follow Jesus.

I take that to mean that all that “normal” stuff is not what Jesus was talking about. He wasn’t talking about things being hard in the regular.

If life is hard right now, that’s real. That’s true. God is with you in it, God’s grace is for you, his love is for you, let’s be in it together, with compassion and support and all the things. It isn’t that those things aren’t real and that those things aren’t hard. But just because it is hard, that doesn’t mean you are “carrying a cross.”

Jesus gave us context, each time this came up. Let’s look deeper at my favorite one again, we just covered it recently in Matthew:

Disciples Carry Crosses

Matthew 16:24 ESV

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

What did he mean by that? He says exactly what he meant:

Matthew 16:25 ESV

25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

And our temptation, the best of us, will be tempted to counsel caution and prudence and carefulness in the face of “losing our lives for His sake.”

Trying to safe your own life is the most natural thing, it is literally “self-preservation”, “self-defense” and it is one of the most powerfully ingrained instincts you have… God-given instincts and the RIGHT instinct in so many instincts.

But Jesus is on a path that makes NO common sense, to voluntarily lay down his own life, take up a literal cross, and die on it on purpose. The most natural, logical, sensical, “smart” idea is to… not do that.

The scene that proceeds this verse is Jesus revealing that he was headed for the cross, and Peter takes him aside:

Matthew 16:22 ESV

22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

… that’s not what “Lord” means, by the way.

Matthew 16:23 ESV

23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Here’s a tip: don’t be Satan. Adversary, enemy, so intense he is speaking in Hebrew, or calling out a proper name as the translators preserve the capital name here.

Jesus says, not only is he in the business of laying down his life… we will be too. Anyone who would follow after him or, to put it again in disciples language:

Luke 14:27 ESV

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

An absolutely explicit mark of a disciple. And if won’t do this, can’t do this… you cannot be Jesus’ disciples.

Sounds important.

What does Cross-Carrying Actually Look Like?

Losing your life.

That’s what Jesus said. Try to save your life, you will lose it. But if you lay it down, if you lose it… then you will save it.

We release all we have. In Jesus’ words from Luke:

Luke 14:33 ESV

33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

We “renounce” all that we have. We don’t try to hold on to “our” life, “our” time, talent and treasure, we eagerly look for where and how we can pour it out.

And, as do all the marks of a disciple, it fits perfectly with all the others.

We follow Jesus, for He is laying down his life, pouring out his life, his self, his spirit his love on others. We follow.

We love. The giving of us for the gooding of them. Of you. Of my brother and sister in Christ, in the street, at work… pouring my life out.

We abide and obey, life with Christ poured out for others; in obedience to His command to give it all. All of life for all of life.

We take up our cross when we willingly sacrifice our life (time, talent and treasure) to follow, love, abide and obey.

That is in obedience to Jesus. That’s about being faithful.

But I’ll add this piece: did Jesus literally have a cross yet when he said that? He knew the literal one was coming, and it did. But he could have walked up to a Cop, to a Roman centurion, mouthed off, got in his face, and got the cross sooner, couldn’t he?

When did the actual cross come? I think this matters, this shapes our understanding of taking up our cross and not falling into a pseudo-self-martyrdom / victim mentality.

Try this on, this is a theory, but I think it holds up.

Literal crosses are found when Empire meets Kingdom

Empire is Babel. Egypt. Babylon. Rome. The god of this world, ruling through the empires of this world. The values of Empire are popularity, success, riches, achievement, greatness, individuality. You hear the gospel of Empire in the American Dream, in Health Wealth and Prosperity.

Kingdom is the upside down Kingdom of Jesus. The Kingdom of Heaven, where the last are first, where the poor and lost and grieving and humble are blessed and lifted up. Where the greatest are those who serve, who sacrifice, who pour out their life for others… who give up their life for others.

When Empire says “No” and God says “Yes”, you found a cross.

When the world says “that’s stupid” and the Spirit says “go for it”… you found a cross.

When they see failure but you see Jesus: you found a cross.

Crosses are found where Empire meets Kingdom.

There are SO many places in this world where Christians are being literally imprisoned and executed for the name of Jesus. Current estimate say more than 365 million Christians are actively persecuted. North Korea, Somalia, Libya top the list.

I thank God that is not true, today, here in the US. Even our “persecution” in the park, praise God, we faced a fine in court, with the option to show that the city is violating our constitutional rights, which they are. That is a miraculous blessing and I don’t take it for granted.

But our greatest danger in the US is not literal crosses. It is the siren song of Empire, the call of comfort and success and greatness and individual self-fulfillment… what David Platt calls a “Satanic Lullaby” lulling us to sleep.

Where and As Christians wake up and serve and love… they face opposition. I do think our work in the park is picking up a cross work. Not because of the noise with Northglenn. That is the grumbling of a few folks who can’t see a neighbor past their backpack.

We take up our cross when we willingly sacrifice our life (time, talent and treasure) to follow, love, abide and obey.

Trini is carrying a cross to the park when she makes a pot of chili, puts it in a wagon, gets it over there, and scoops it out with generosity and compassion, especially when it’s hard as a simple act of love for folks who might be hungry. When Kathy, and Ralph and Dede, Alice, when they hug someone without reservation, and call them by name and listen to their story. It isn’t magic, it is love and care. What is the cost? A bit of their life. Their time, talent and treasure, poured out for the good of folks they barely know or haven’t met yet.

And not just in the park.

Brandon is carrying a cross when he spends a day up at camp sorting out broken chairs, because that makes camp better and safer, and creates opportunity for kids to meet Jesus.

Kelly spends hours and hours every week, picking and planning and preparing worship, as an act of love for God and love for us, that we could better express our hearts before God. What does it cost her? A bit of life: time, talent and treasure, poured out for love. A life laid down.

KK cooks 26 meals a year, used to be 50, for all 50 of us. That is time, talent and treasure that I get to see first hand. Why? Love. She loves God, she loves you, she abides and obeys, and the Spirit led her into it by the hand.

What do all those folks have in common? Probably mortified that I called attention to it at all, because they aren’t doing it for attention or praise or thanks or glory. It’s for the audience of One… and for the good of us.

Disciples of Jesus look for opportunities, as the Spirit leads, to lay down our life. To serve humble. To give generously. To welcome recklessly. To love famously.

There may well come a day when doing any and all of that in the name of Jesus brings more persecution than a fine from Northglenn. But does the action or inaction of Empire change what we do or don’t do? It should not. It will not. We follow a King, and his footsteps lead to the cross.

And oh, look, here comes Holy Week.

Having lived a perfect life in obedience to God. Having poured out his life daily for years, to bless and heal, to bring deliverance, to teach His disciples all His commands… our Lord laid down his life willingly on a cross.

It was not taken from him, he laid it down as a sacrifice for us all… that we might live and live forever free from guilt, shame, sin and death.

Galatians 6:14 ESV

14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.