The Meaning of Discipleship: Number 2
If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself, take up his cross and follow me. Mark 8:34, Phillips.
The second difficult word in Jesus' description of discipleship is "cross." The bad news to Peter and the rest of the disciples (including us) is that Jesus' cross is not the only one. He goes on to say that each of His followers will have his or her own cross.
To fully understand the statement that each person must take up the cross, we need to put ourselves in the place of those first disciples. The idea of a cross or of being crucified doesn't do much for our twenty-first-century imaginations. To us, "crucifixion" is a word that has lost most of its meaning. But that was not true for the disciples. They knew that bearing a cross was a one-way trip leading to nowhere but death.
It is with that realization that the word "deny" and the word "cross" intersect. The cross, like the concept of denial of self, has been trivialized by the Christian community. For some people, bearing the cross is wearing it as an ornament around their neck. For others it means putting up with some discomfort or inconvenience in life, such as a nagging husband or a sloppy wife, or even a physical impediment.
Jesus does not have in mind those caricatures of cross-bearing. He is speaking of the cross as an instrument of death--not physical for most of His hearers, but of the crucifixion of the self, the denial of the center of our life and our primary allegiance to our self. Ellen White points out that "the warfare against self is the greatest battle ever fought" (Steps to Christ, p. 43). And James Denney emphasizes that "though sin may have a natural birth it does not die a natural death; in every case it has to be morally sentenced and put to death." That sentencing is an act of the will under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Jesus and Paul repeatedly refer to it as a crucifixion.
Paul is especially clear on that topic in Romans 6, in which he describes becoming a Christian as a crucifixion of the "old self" (verse 6, RSV) and a resurrection to a new way of life with a new center--Jesus and His will. It is that death that is implicit in His command to deny one's self and bear one's cross. Paul points out that baptism by immersion is the perfect symbol of spiritual death and resurrection to a new life centered on God (verses 1-11).
If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself, take up his cross and follow me. Mark 8:34, Phillips.
The second difficult word in Jesus' description of discipleship is "cross." The bad news to Peter and the rest of the disciples (including us) is that Jesus' cross is not the only one. He goes on to say that each of His followers will have his or her own cross.
To fully understand the statement that each person must take up the cross, we need to put ourselves in the place of those first disciples. The idea of a cross or of being crucified doesn't do much for our twenty-first-century imaginations. To us, "crucifixion" is a word that has lost most of its meaning. But that was not true for the disciples. They knew that bearing a cross was a one-way trip leading to nowhere but death.
It is with that realization that the word "deny" and the word "cross" intersect. The cross, like the concept of denial of self, has been trivialized by the Christian community. For some people, bearing the cross is wearing it as an ornament around their neck. For others it means putting up with some discomfort or inconvenience in life, such as a nagging husband or a sloppy wife, or even a physical impediment.
Jesus does not have in mind those caricatures of cross-bearing. He is speaking of the cross as an instrument of death--not physical for most of His hearers, but of the crucifixion of the self, the denial of the center of our life and our primary allegiance to our self. Ellen White points out that "the warfare against self is the greatest battle ever fought" (Steps to Christ, p. 43). And James Denney emphasizes that "though sin may have a natural birth it does not die a natural death; in every case it has to be morally sentenced and put to death." That sentencing is an act of the will under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Jesus and Paul repeatedly refer to it as a crucifixion.
Paul is especially clear on that topic in Romans 6, in which he describes becoming a Christian as a crucifixion of the "old self" (verse 6, RSV) and a resurrection to a new way of life with a new center--Jesus and His will. It is that death that is implicit in His command to deny one's self and bear one's cross. Paul points out that baptism by immersion is the perfect symbol of spiritual death and resurrection to a new life centered on God (verses 1-11).
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