"Take up your cross and follow me"

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In today's gospel from Matthew 16:24-28, Jesus teaches us what following him really means. He repeats it often in the gospels but it is something that we often pass over or do not take seriously. Jesus says that if we want to follow him we have to deny ourselves and take up our cross. He goes on to say that if we lose our life for his sake we will find it. What is the cross that we have to take up? First of all it does not mean that we seek out what will cause us to suffer. No, Jesus himself went around curing those who were sick and suffering. Jesus is saying that to follow him means that we make him the centre of our lives.

 

As spiritual writers like Thomas Merton have said taking up the cross means that first we discover our true identity. We do not own our life to live it we wish. We have received it from a loving Father who sent his Son to live as one of us to show us how to do God's will. The cross for Jesus was the culmination of his total self giving in love for us in obedience to his Father's will. So for us it means following Jesus faithfully and accepting all the difficulties that this implies. Another way of putting it is to say that we die to our false self. That is we leave aside everything in our life which is contrary to the teaching of Jesus such as our pride, anger, or failure to help others in need, our seeking of sinful pleasure. The death of Jesus led to the glory of the resurrection. As Paul says in Romans 6:11, ''So you must always consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.''

 

Don Hornsey