“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14.27)
Some years ago, a particularly rough storm passed through the area. People here are accustomed to high winds, but the winds that evening were not the usual ones. When morning came and we looked around to see what damage had been done by the storm, we saw–among other things–that the cross atop our church steeple had been blown down. Considering that the cross had been on the steeple for at least sixty years, that event proved that we had experienced exceptional winds.
But it wasn’t the winds that disturbed the locals so much as the loss of that cross that had stood atop that church. Fortunately, the other damage was less severe–some shingles lost and a few pieces of metal roofing loosened. But the sight of the cross on the ground by the church and not on top of the steeple where it had been for so many years was unnerving. On an almost primal level, everyone understood that the church without the cross was not the same church. So, it became a priority to restore the metal cross to its place on the highest point of the church, although that required expensive and large machinery being moved in to erect it again on its perch. Still, it was done as soon as possible.
That experience confirms a basic teaching of the Galilean Rabbi. We cannot take the cross out of his message without altering his teaching and changing it into something unrecognizable. This is why the Teacher says, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
The problem, of course, is that we don’t like the cross. Not a real, honest-to-goodness cross. We have diluted and diminished cross-carrying so much so that it often has become just a piece of jewelry we carry, not on our back, but around our neck, for the price of a few dollars. While we tell ourselves that the small but shiny cross we wear puts us in the camp of the Rabbi–much like the school ring on our finger places us in a certain school–we can be sure the Teacher would not see it our way.
The reason is not difficult to find. He was beaten and forced to carry a beam of heavy wood on his back to a steep hill outside the city limits and he was roped and nailed to those cross-beams by Roman soldiers who spat their tobacco juice on the ground and cursed the hot sun all the while they hammered his hands and his feet onto the wood. They had no concern for his cries and not an ounce of compassion for the human life they were taking with each swing of the hammer.
That cross was despicable and dehumanizing and disgusting. It simply cannot be reduced to an online purchase of James Avery jewelry, no more so than a trinket around our neck in the shape of an electric chair could be made pretty regardless of the polish or the precious gems we might put on it. The thing we don’t want to ever forget is that a cross is deadly serious. It was one of the cruelest instruments of death ever concocted by human minds for criminals against the state and slaves rebellious towards their masters.
So, we do serious disservice to the Teacher and show disrespect to his teachings if we turn this brutal means of torture and death into some imitation piece sold in stores for a few dollars. If we rightly understand what the Teacher is asking of us when he tells us to take up our cross, the only right response is to shudder and to shake in our shoes. It means we are going to die a thousand deaths. We can–and should–wear a cross around our necks, but it should weigh heavy on our hearts as a continuous reminder of the high cost of discipleship.
How, then, do we restore the cross as the centerpiece of our lives instead of it being little more than a lapel pin or a bracelet charm that we wear without second-thought? The answer we give to that question determines how heavy the cross we carry really is. The truth is if we aren’t face down in the dirt because of the weight of the cross on our backs, then we aren’t carrying a heavy enough cross.
We come closest to the cross of the Crucified Yeshua bar Yossef when we make selflessness a way of life instead of an occasional good deed that might earn us a scout merit badge, but won’t draw any blood from us. We know the weight of the cross when we do the heavy lifting of discipleship–loving our enemies, forgiving innumerable times, putting other’s needs before our own wants. We know the terror of the cross when we speak out against injustice while others ridicule us, when we recognize the despised and the dispossessed as our brother or sister while others around us are name-calling and dehumanizing the least and the last among us, and when we put our livelihood on the line for the cause of truth and goodness and right, even though the crowds call us crazy or bleeding hearts.
It is not that we will have few opportunities to carry the cross. Every day puts a possible cross or two or three on our path. Rather, it is that we avoid the opportunities because the cost is too great. And so long as we refuse to pay the price and we remove the cross from following the Crucified Yeshua, we will continue to have a poor imitation of the real thing, comfortable with a chain around our neck, which is a far cry from the discomfort of a cross on our backs.
The story is told of a young pastor who was bragging to an older pastor about the new cross his congregation had put on their church steeple. He pointed to it and told the older man how much it had cost the community. The older man looked at the new cross for a moment and said to the young man, “You paid too much for it. There was a time when it was free.” In many ways, the old minister was right. The Romans didn’t charge the Galilean preacher a dime for the cross. On the other hand, it cost the Galilean every cent he had.
— Jeremy Myers
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