“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:27).
Our Gospel reading today goes a long way toward defining what it means to be a disciple. A disciple is a “follower,” and following Jesus means being on the road with him to Jerusalem (which is where we find Jesus today with his disciples). The road to Jerusalem leads to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, which is why he talks about his disciples carrying the cross. In fact, carrying the cross is definitional when it comes to discipleship. If his disciples are truly going to follow Jesus, they will have to take this road with him.
When Jesus says “carry” the cross, he’s not talking about picking it up for a moment and then putting it aside and moving on: a temporary acceptance of a transitory task. Nor is he asking the disciples simply to move it from one place to another. The task is not so quickly accomplished. The word used here implies an action in which the object continues to be carried forward. The task continues to be embraced. It’s not a temporary thing. Being a disciple is not a “temp” job.
The continuing character of discipleship is underscored earlier in Luke’s Gospel when Jesus tells the disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23). Luke’s version of the saying emphasizes the daily character of discipleship, the same note that Jesus is striking in our Gospel today. Being a disciple means embracing the call, day in and day out.
In another sense, carrying the cross means embracing our own role as Jesus’ followers. Though our translation doesn’t make it clear, Jesus calls each of his disciples to carry “one’s own cross.” The call is particular to each of us: each of us will be following the road that Jesus walked, but the task that will be in front of us, the cross that we will be carrying, will be our own. It will be intrinsic to us, rather than imposed from without; the cross will be a part of who we are as disciples.
I think the intrinsic character of our calling to take up our cross and follow Jesus is the key to the hard saying at the heart of our Gospel: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:26). With his particular call to carry the cross and follow him as his disciples, Jesus is trying to get to the core of who we are. The core relationships that constitute our lives, and even our own self-regard, must be overwritten by our identity as Jesus’ followers.
St. Paul writes in the twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God– what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). Following Jesus will lead to the transformation of who we are. The cross that we carry will be intrinsic to who we are.
St. Paul says, just before this, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). Taking up our cross, and following Jesus to Jerusalem, is sacrificial work, because his work was sacrificial. He offered himself for us, for the sins of the world, and being his disciple means that we share in his ministry, in his self-offering.
Of course, it would be absurd to put whatever cross we carry alongside his. Jesus dies for the sins of the world, we don’t. But there will be acts of mercy, and sacrifices of self, that will partake in some way in his self-offering. We will carry our own cross, as Jesus says in our Gospel today, and it will not be for nothing.
St. Paul’s words suggest that it’s in our worship that we share most clearly in the sacrifice of Christ, in his death and resurrection. It’s here that our core character as Jesus’ disciples is most evident. In the Eucharist we offer “the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,” Acts of mercy flow from Jesus’ own act of mercy, as God by his grace makes available to us the transforming love of Christ to us in this sacrament of the altar.
Today, the Church of the Holy Cross celebrates the twenty-fifth year of its founding as a congregation. A church that is dedicated to Christ’s holy cross takes as its title deeds the very definition of discipleship itself. You’ve been following Jesus for a quarter century, as his disciples here on Cason Lane, and God has blessed the work. Well done! Here’s to the next quarter century, as we continue to follow Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, to death and resurrection.