De-Christianizing the Cross
Let’s talk about the cross. I want you to imagine you are a first century Jew living in Jerusalem under Roman oppression. Go ahead, close your eyes and get those imagination juices flowing. I’ll wait.
So, what does your life look like? Are you married? Do you have children? Is your home small with dirt floors and stone walls? Did you make the bricks yourself? Does the sun rise outside your kitchen window every morning, warming you as you begin the day’s tasks? Are you a fisherman, a seamstress, a farmer, a shepherd? Whoever you are, sorry, but I’m going to interrupt your day a little bit…
KNOCK! KNOCK!
That’s odd. You’re not expecting any visitors today. You walk over to the door, pull it open, and find an armor-clad Roman soldier glowering down at you. Your heart leaps up into your throat and your stomach does several back flips. He barks something about a local insurrectionist. Are you involved with him in any way? Have you seen him? Do you know anything about him? You answer his questions in a trembling voice until, much to your relief, he leaves. Your heart is still pounding and your legs are a bit shaky, so you sit down. So many of your friends and neighbors have suffered underneath Rome’s rule, and you’re terrified you might be next. Your mind wanders to those horrific, gruesome crosses set upon the hill outside the city gate…
Let’s fast-forward a bit.
A couple of weeks have gone by since your surprise visit from the soldier. You’ve been hearing rumors about a man—a prophet, some think—and others are saying he is the long-awaited Messiah, poised and ready to restore the power and glory of the Israelites and squash the oppression and injustice of the Romans! You’ve heard stories of miraculous healings and incredible teachings, and have finally decided to go check this man out for yourself. He’s been traveling around the area, preaching in synagogues, and you’ve finally located him. Truth be told, it wasn’t that hard; the crowd following him is enormous! All of a sudden he stops, turns, faces the crowd, and everyone falls silent. The air is positively electric with anticipation. Then, he starts to speak:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 14:25–35).
While he has been speaking, some in the crowd have drawn nearer. You recognize some pretty shady characters among them: tax collectors, drunkards, even several prostitutes. Others have started grumbling. The religious leaders are bemoaning this would-be “Messiah” and his choice of company. As for you, you’re not sure what to think. It was that bit about the cross that got to you. Isn’t the Messiah supposed to end Roman oppression? Why in the world would he want you to take up such a cruel instrument of torture? It’s as if he’s planning on surrendering to Rome, admitting defeat, and dying the death of a criminal, and he’s asking you to follow him! Your hopes for freedom from Rome are crumbling by the minute, but still … there’s something about this man you can’t quite ignore. You want to know what he meant when he asked you to take up your cross, so you decide to stick around and find out.
Hey there, me again. Time to jump back to the present.
Today, the cross is widely recognized as the symbol of Christianity. If you’re a believer, it’s likely you think affectionately about the cross; it is the representation of Christ’s sacrifice for your sins, after all. We hang crosses on our walls and wear them around our necks. We adorn our churches and pulpits with them. We even sing about them. There’s nothing wrong with this, but oftentimes we tend to “Christianize” the cross when we’re reading passages like the one above, and in so doing misinterpret Jesus’ meaning. A few seconds ago when you were a first century Jew, the cross held no affection for you, did it? It was a horrible thing, a terrifying symbol of Rome’s power over you, a fate reserved for the worst of the worst. If you were really imagining hard, when Jesus asked you to take up your cross you would not have thought, He means I have to be utterly and completely dedicated to him. You would not have thought, He means I need to sacrifice some things in order to follow him. The cross would not have been a symbol of glory or power or significance to you. No, it would have represented punishment, torture, oppression, shame, defeat, and defilement. The only emotions you would have felt for the cross would have been hatred and disdain.
This begs the question then: What did Jesus mean? How did he intend for his audience to understand what he was telling them? Well, the clues are in the context, so let’s take a look. Earlier in chapter fourteen, Luke tells us Jesus was dining at the home of one of the Pharisees. While he was there, he healed a man (even though it was the Sabbath), rebuked those invited for exalting themselves and choosing places of honor, and told a parable intended to shake these Jewish “somebodies” out of their notion that they were “in” with God simply because of their lineage (Luke 14:1–24). Later, when the Pharisees are grumbling about Jesus’ teaching, he tells them a series of parables about the joy in Heaven over repentant sinners, the scandalous nature of whom God receives, and the danger of relying on one’s obedience as the basis for acceptance with God (Luke 15). What exactly was Jesus doing? He was deconstructing everything the Jews thought they knew about the Law, their heritage, and how one is righteous before God. His intention was to unsettle his audience from their confidence in their own righteousness and their temporal views of the Messiah. So, with that in mind, let’s press on.
Between the early verses of chapter 14 and the parables of chapter 15, we find Jesus speaking to the crowds that are following him about these very misconceptions. He opens with a call to hate your parents, spouse, children and family (wait, I thought we were supposed to love everyone?), then moves into that prickly bit about taking up your cross (yikes!), talks about building towers and going to war (strange…), and finally ends with a somewhat cryptic statement about salt (ok Jesus, now you’re just being weird). All of these things, though seemingly disconnected at first glance, are driving towards a specific point. When Jesus says we cannot be his disciples unless we hate everyone we hold most dear, even our very lives, we should hear his words and think, That’s impossible! Nobody does that. And if we’re not thinking that, then our thoughts are probably going something like this: Have I left behind enough for Jesus? Have I sacrificed enough of my time, my comfort, my family, my possessions? Have I suffered enough for him? And just like that, our assurance is eroded down to practically nothing and we’re doubting whether we’re even actually Christians at all. Why? Because nobody is meeting the requirement. We know this. That’s the whole point. That’s why Jesus said it. But rather than letting the impossibility of what Christ is saying drive us to him, we turn inward and begin obsessing over ourselves.
We’re going to hop over the “take up your cross” bit for a moment, but don’t worry, we’ll come back to it. Jesus gives two examples that would have been familiar to the audience of the time: building a tower and going to war. In both, Jesus’ point is the same: You don’t start a large scale construction project without first making sure you have the funds to complete it, and you don’t go to war without making sure you have enough troops to meet the opposing army. Why then would you attempt to one day meet God without first making sure your righteousness is up to snuff? And if it isn’t, if you fail to meet the test of God’s holy standard, then you’d better send a delegate to arrange for peace. (Hmm, I wonder who that could be?) The truth Jesus illustrates here is that the Jews were attempting to build up their own righteousness, but were going to fall short and end up a mockery; they were marching into battle against a force they could not hope to conquer and were headed towards destruction because they were trusting in something inherent to themselves to merit salvation. But like salt that has lost its saltiness, there was nothing in them of value. They could not hope to restore the righteousness God required by themselves; it was impossible. All their law-keeping and rule-following could never accomplish this and was not fit even for the manure pile. Everything they thought they were bringing to the table, so to speak, was completely and utterly worthless. This was the secret to why the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Jesus and the Pharisees and religious leaders grumbled: One group had evaluated their lives and found them lacking, while the other had evaluated their lives and found nothing lacking.
Now, let’s go back to the cross.
“Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (v. 27). When Jesus utters these shocking words, the listeners of the time would have heard a call away from victory. I can hear the grumbling now: “Count myself a criminal? Deny my righteousness as one of God’s chosen people before these Gentile swine and embrace the scorn and shame of condemnation and defeat? No way. Absolutely not. They’re the godless ones, not me!” Not only would this cross-bearing call have been extremely offensive, but due to their half-formed notions of the Messiah, the Jews would have felt Jesus’ words to be a contradiction to God’s promises to them, his chosen people. They did not expect a weak, suffering, shameful Messiah, and therefore could not imagine lives of weakness, suffering, and shame for themselves. The Jews were looking for Messiah to come in triumph and glory, and thus expected likewise for his people. In their earthbound theology, they failed to see that Messiah must suffer first, then glory would come after. And so it was that the call to such a life sounded to their ears like nails on a chalkboard. Even the apostle Peter, on the heels of confessing Jesus as the Messiah, reproved his Lord for saying that he must suffer and die. This earned him a stern rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Mk. 8:33). If we are ashamed of the weakness of a suffering Savior, then it follows that we will also be ashamed of the weakness of a life as his disciple. Yet Jesus tells us to expect as much (Matt. 10:24–25).
The call to take up our cross, then, is Jesus essentially ripping the rug out from under our feet and showing us the impossibility of attempting to follow him in our own strength. Functionally, it is a “Law” passage meant to crush us, cause us to renounce ourselves (not only our vices but our virtue, see Phil. 3:4–9), and drive us to him. Taking up our cross is not a work we do to save ourselves; it is an evaluation and renunciation of ourselves that leads us into a relationship, not of earthly victory (remember, there was nothing temporally or physically enticing about Jesus; he had no money, no power, no fame, no beauty), but of spiritual victory: righteousness by faith and salvation from self and sin. Then, once we’ve recognized ourselves as wretched sinners, despaired of our righteousness and cast ourselves upon him in total dependence, we find “Gospel” passages like this one about following Jesus all the sweeter:
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28–30).
If salvation is based upon our dedication, zeal, sacrifice, or suffering, then God help us … but if it is based upon a God who is dedicated to and zealous about seeking and saving the lost, and a Savior who suffered and sacrificed in our place, then God be praised, for nothing in all of Creation can separate us from him!