What Does it Mean Today to 'Take Up Your Cross'?
What does it mean in our context to “take up one’s cross”? And how is it something life-giving, in the sense that we lose our life in order to find it—as Jesus expressed paradoxically? The story in last Sunday's lectionary, which contains these phrases, gives us a glimpse into the late stage of Jesus’ ministry when he sees what it is all coming to.
Even people who are not followers of Jesus, or not Christians, often acknowledge that Jesus was a spiritual genius, even a healer. He had a beautiful, vivid, hopeful way of articulating God’s dream for the world. But throughout most of history, spiritual geniuses and wonder workers, those offering an alternative measure of worth in the world haven’t fared very well with those in power. A confrontation always seems to arise between those who measure things according to a materialistic, this-life-is-all-there-is rubric, or a power rubric, and spiritual masters like Jesus who tell us our ability to see, or to discern value, is quite limited without God’s guidance…. {Read remainder of article on Patheos HERE.}