Take up your cross

Passage for reflection: Matthew 16: 21 - 28

There are times on our journey we would rather avoid what we are being asked to do and have an easier life. 

When I was at school, we used to go cross country running and I was part of the group that were at the back, straggling to the finish line hours after the winner of the race. The run went through a wood and in the wood was a huge dip which when wet, was almost impossible to slide down one side and clamber up the other. So, us stranglers thought we’d just not bother going in it but just round it. No one would know! 

But what we didn’t realise was that the evil PE teacher stood in the dip and knew what we were up to. He yelled at us and made us do the whole run again. There was no missing out the hardest bit. 

It seems to me that many of us who profess we are Christians would like to avoid the reality of the cross. We know Jesus has beaten the cross and has risen so we want to not really think about its barbaric nature as an instrument of torture or all that blood, or suffering we cannot begin to imagine. We want fluffy bunnies and to have a faith that just doesn’t put us out. We want Easter without Good Friday.

But Jesus in our Gospel reading for today reminds us avoiding or by passing the cross isn’t possible. Indeed, he compels us to take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow him, every day.

In Jesus’ day, everyone knew how you got rid of troublemakers. There were crucifying posts placed by the side of the road so if you thought about doing wrong, you knew what would happen to you. Crucifixion was a slow, agonising, inhuman way to kill someone. Crucifixion happened on a rubbish tip outside the city wall. Crucifixion was a means to purge the evil from the midst of the purity of religion practiced by strict Jews and from the perfect rule of Rome.

And yet, Jesus says, we are to take up our cross and follow him. We are, like he would soon after speaking these words, to carry our cross through the streets of the world, risking ridicule and being put out. We are to take up our cross because otherwise we cannot come after him because we haven’t really got the point of following him. You can’t just have the nice bits. You have to trace the rainbow through the rain. You have to go down the dips of life and clamber back up. You cannot walk by the hard places. 

So how do we take up our cross today?

 By being self sacrificial rather than pandering to our self. 

By being in the world rather than aloof from it. By making our churches cross shaped again rather than kidding people it will all be okay if we just pray harder. 

By putting ourselves second rather than first. 

By rediscovering the radical nature of Jesus so much so we risk negative reaction from people to our plans and our words.

 By looking for Jesus in the hard slog, in the things we find ourselves doing that aren’t easy. 

By being brave to follow him to death, death to our selfish desires and open to the job he calls us to to bring peace and reconciliation to a broken world. 

Remember the words of Bonhoeffer:

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

When I served in the church in Shildon in County Durham we had two men who looked after the property, but who didn’t come to church very often. One day they were mending the church fence. 

With great glee they saw me walk by and said to me:

“We’ve found two champion bits of wood in the shed!” 

I pointed out to them these were the parts of the cross we carried through the town on Good Friday and that rather than use them to mend the fence, they might be put back in the shed for their proper use! 

You can’t avoid the cross, you can’t use its wood for other than what it is meant for, you can’t sometimes go anywhere but straight into trouble. To be authentic and relevant today, we have to show we bar where people are really struggling. We only do that by being in those places. However hard it is.

At the end of another church year our call is to be crucified with him that we may rise with him, to die to self and in doing that to embrace others.  

"Take up your cross," the Saviour said, if you would my disciple be; take up your cross with willing heart, and humbly follow after me." 

 

Take up your cross; let not its weight fill your weak spirit with alarm; Christ's strength shall bear your spirit up and brace your heart and nerve your arm. 

 

Take up your cross, heed not the shame, and let your foolish heart be still; the Lord for you accepted death upon a cross, on Calvary's hill.

Take up your cross, then, in Christ's strength, and calmly every danger brave: it guides you to abundant life and leads to victory o’er the grave.”