Cross

​Deny yourself. Pick up your cross. And start walking. Not exactly the best recruitment strategy. But that’s the call of discipleship.

My family and I have visited many churches in my lifetime. Some modern, some ancient. And some that have been converted into bars or homes. Each share a common feature: the cross.

It might be in plain sight above or on the altar. Or carved into the stone as a leftover reminder of what that building once was.

Whether its polished mahogany or two roughhewn timbers held together by rope the cross is the quintessential symbol of Christianity. And that’s not by coincidence.

The cross ​is the visible reminder of what Jesus went through, and what he calls us to do.

On this second Sunday of Lent, we step out of the wilderness and follow Jesus to a place just as dangerous. Life itself.

​Lent is a time we move forward with Jesus, without hesitation or trepidation. The disciples would eventually follow Jesus to Jerusalem, where he will be put to death by a legal execution.
 
This is not what the Twelve had in mind when they dropped everything to follow him. Luckily, we know how the story ends. But before we can get to Easter, we too have to keep walking with Him. And this, according to Mark’s gospel, is how we are to do it.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? .... Mark 8:31-38​

Fresh off Peter’s bold declaration that Jesus is the Messiah—Jesus takes a deep breath and says something that knocks the wind out of everyone: “The Son of Man must suffer.”
 
And just like that, all their triumphant hopes come crashing down. Peter, bless him, pulls Jesus aside and basically says, "Hey man, you're the Messiah! You don’t suffer. You win!"
 
And Jesus just tells him, "Get behind me, Satan."
 
But can we blame Peter? We all want a strong, victorious Messiah. Not a suffering one. We want a champion, a victor, not a loser. We also want discipleship that’s all Easter and no Good Friday. But Jesus says, "If you want to follow me, then you got to actually follow me."

​Deny yourself. Pick up your cross. And start walking. Not exactly the best recruitment strategy. But that’s the call of discipleship.
 
 Eugene Peterson stated plainly: “We want to follow Jesus, but like Peter, we also want to tell Jesus where to go.  Jesus does not need our advice; he needs our faithful obedience.”
 
Despite what modern Christianity often markets, discipleship isn’t about how well we win. Jesus is more interested in how well we lose. He tells us, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

This goes against everything we’ve been told and taught from the world. That’s the paradox of spiritual growth and transformation: you can’t find your true self without denying or losing, your false self.
 
Like we touched on last week, we have to face the beasts in our lives, then leave them in the wilderness and move forward in life to live out your Christlikeness. That means following the one who is the Christ who showed us there’s no resurrection without the cross.
 
Discipleship isn’t about winning or losing; it’s about surrender, letting go of the things that are holding you back from being who God made you to be: a beloved child.

The way of Christ isn’t about getting ahead—it’s about moving forward to where God needs you to be. It’s about emptying yourself of ego and pride and taking what God has to offer—even if it’s the cross.
 
Because, like Greg Boyle reminds us, “The Risen Christ isn’t found in the dead. Resurrection locates us in the here and now.”

Christ is the foundation of life. He comes alive day after day, second-by-second through you and me. We are resurrection people. But you don’t get the joy of Easter without the suffering of the cross.
 
The good news in this is Jesus doesn’t tell us to go find a cross. He says, pick up the one you already have. Yours might be a disability, chronic pain, depression, or conflict in your family or workplace.

Too many in our country bear a cross simply because of … the color of their skin or the person they love. Some crosses are heavier than others, or more difficult to manage but Jesus says, “Pick it up and walk with me.” His yoke is easy. His burden is light.
 
So what’s stopping you? Is it a cross of shame, guilt, fear anxiety? Is your cross telling you, you’re not worthy or strong or faithful enough?

Have we forgotten that Christ didn’t come to make your cross heavier. He came to redeem and heal and transform you into who God wants you to be: The Beloved.
 
Today is 3/16…and like John 3:16 teaches us God didn’t send the Christ to start a new religion. Christ was given to us so we could start a new life. And not just any life, but an abundant life. The kind that lives on forever. To receive such a gift, something has to give. Jesus asks, “What good is it to gain the whole world but forfeit your soul?”
 
What good is our faith—this church—without the cross? The very thing Paul calls “sheer madness to world… but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). And what is that power if not Love?

Love claims us, names us, sustains us. It picks us up when we fall and welcomes us home when we stray.
 
God’s love comes to us in the flesh through Jesus—who, as Peter boldly declared, is the Christ, the very love of God incarnate. And the cross is proof of just how far God is willing go to love us. But how far are we willing to go to love God, love others and serve both?

Love is the cross we are called to carry. It is the way of Jesus, the way of God. And we must surrender anything that keeps us from loving.

​Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” This isn’t the comfortable Christianity we prefer. It isn’t prosperity gospel or easy good news. It’s a call to sacrifice, one Bonhoeffer knew well as he took up his cross and followed Jesus—even to his death—resisting the rise of Nazi Germany.
 
Let go of your old self. Pick up your Christ-like self. And go share love… even if it costs you everything—it’s in losing ourselves in love, we are found.
 
In Christ, God sets the compass of our hearts. And Jesus leads us in the direction we must go. Down a path that embraces and embodies the very heart of God.

Which means we have to let go of whatever is holding us back from receiving this gift. We have to give up that which isn’t divine love. Because, to love like God, which Jesus embodies, requires a shift, a sacrifice.
 
Love makes us surrender the need to be right, to be better than, to win. It reshapes us, rewires us. It teaches us to let our hearts lead. That’s the way of Jesus.
 
For two thousand years, the Church has stood on Peter’s truth: Jesus is the Christ. Our job is to bear witness to that—not just with our words, but with every fiber of our being. Not by making the right theological arguments, but by living like Jesus lived. With tenderness. With courage. With a love so big it makes people stop and want to follow.

Jesus says it like this, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). That’s discipleship. That’s following Jesus’ lead.
 
Lent is a time for us to contemplate deeply what Jesus is asking of us. Let’s enter every space knowing we are called to make a sacrifice too—giving ourselves in holy acts of love, showing compassion and mercy for those in need of it; demanding justice that calls for equality, and leads us all to peace.
 
Jesus calls us to be the light of the world, a light that shines for others. And when we live in each other’s light, darkness cannot overcome it.
 
As we build a community of love in the space between, we build together knowing that in the losing, the suffering, and the surrendering, we find God, we find ourselves, and we find Easter.

This is resurrection- the mark we leave behind to let the world know who we are. The visible presence of Gods love that not even the sting of death can destroy.


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Work Cited
Boyle, Gregory. The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. New York: Avid Reader Press, 2021.
Peterson, Eugene. A Year With Jesus: Daily Readings and Meditations. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2006.