The central chapters of Luke’s gospel contain much teaching about what is involved in following Jesus. One aspect of this, to which Jesus refers on a number of occasions, is the cost of following him. He does not mince words, and some people who weee listening no doubt were put off by what he said. What follows is the first in a series of four reflections on Jesus’s teaching about the cost of discipleship.
Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed? If anyone is ashamed of me and my message, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in his glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Kingdom of God
Luke 9:23-27 NLT
These words were spoken to “the crowd.” But just before he said them Jesus was speaking to his disciples. “The Son of Man must suffer many terrible things… He will be rejected… he will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead,” he had said. When he turned to the crowd and said what he said, they must have been somewhat mystified, because they hadn’t heard what he said about being rejected and killed. The disciples, on the other hand, must have been alarmed because he had indicated both the way in which he was to die – on a cross, the standard form of Roman execution at the time – and a suggestion that following him meant a willingness to go though exactly the same thing. But there is every possibility that they missed his whole point at the time, and it only made sense years later when they were relating these words to Luke, and thinking back on all that had happened since.
That’s what taking up your cross daily means – being willing to be crucified – executed, put to death, die – for Jesus’s sake. Not exactly a great recruiting message. Not exactly something that comes naturally to any of us. We hold on to life fiercely. Everything in us resists dying. The survival instinct is strong in every one of us. But here Jesus is saying that if we want to be his followers we have to adopt a completely different mindset – that of giving up our life.
However, the Christianity that Jesus calls us to is not some kind of death cult, not at all. What I think he is saying is that our commitment to him must be a stronger force in us than our instinct to hang onto life. He suggests, very insightfully, that there will be times when our instinct for life will push us to deny Christ. It is at those times that we must, if we want to be his followers, go against instinct and acknowledge him, regardless of the consequences. Our desire to promote Jesus and follow him must become greater than our desire to hold onto life.
The reality is, we all die. Some die young, most die old. The medical profession is committed to putting off that reality as long as possible. But the medical profession does not have an answer to the purpose of the life we have, whether it is short or long. That is left for us to work out ourselves. For many, it would seem the purpose of the life we have been given is to gain as much stuff as possible in order to live in the greatest possible comfort and security before we die. Jesus calls this “gaining the whole world,” but says there is no point to it if we lose ourselves in the process. Jesus would say that the purpose of life is to find ourselves, but that we can only truly find ourselves if we first acknowledge Jesus, and then accept the invitation to be his disciples. That is the ultimate purpose of life. If we achieve that, then when (and how) we die is irrelevant, we have found life, a life that will never end.
a doctor reads luke 