“If anyone would
come after me, that one must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
(Mark 8:34) That is one of the most difficult commands that Jesus gave us:
“Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” It’s not just difficult to do; it’s difficult to understand. What did Jesus mean when he
told us to take up our crosses? Surely he didn’t mean that we are to literally
carry crosses around! But what is it that he wants us to do?
Over the years, that
question has been answered in all kinds of ways. For example, some people have
believed that when Jesus said this, he meant that we should suffer
intentionally. Many devout Christians became convinced that through suffering,
we could identify with Jesus’ own suffering on the cross; and some of them took
that idea to the extreme. Some refused to wash for years at a time. They wore
filthy rags and lived with matted, insect-infested hair. Others went without
sleep for days or even weeks; and when they did
sleep, they did so in the most uncomfortable places they could find – on beds
of rocks or exposed to the elements of nature. Still others flogged or
mutilated themselves. You may not realize it, but when we give up something
that we enjoy during Lent, we’re following in their footsteps. We’re denying
ourselves in small ways, and identifying with the suffering of Jesus.
Now, a little denial
isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But I don’t think that Jesus ever meant for us
to suffer just for the sake of suffering. After all, Jesus said, “I have come
that [you] may have life, and have it in abundance!” (John 10:10) Denying
oneself to the point of misery doesn’t seem to me to be the way to an abundant
life! And in fact, in his next words, Jesus pointed to that abundant life. “Whoever
wants to save his life will lose it,” he said, “but whoever loses his life for
me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:35) That’s a puzzling comment. We
die by saving ourselves; and we live by dying. It’s a paradox. What did Jesus
mean by that? Maybe we can make sense of Jesus’ words by examining what it
meant in Jesus’ world to carry a cross. In the Roman Empire, anyone who was
carrying a cross was on the way to be executed. A condemned criminal carried
the wooden crossbeam to the place of his own crucifixion. Anyone who carried a
cross was ready to die. Maybe Jesus meant we should be ready to die at any moment
for the gospel. But what does it mean to die for the gospel? Well, what is
worth dying for? The prophet Micah suggested an answer. He told us that God
wants us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. And in the end,
that is the good news of the Gospel: that God loves us so much that he offers
us both justice and mercy, and invites us to walk with Jesus every step of the
way. Justice and mercy. Are those things worth dying for? Let’s consider that
question by looking at justice and mercy one at a time.
Most people would
agree that justice is worth dying for. Remember, for a moment, those brave men
and women who worked for civil rights in the 1960s. Remember Medgar Evers, who
set up local chapters of the NAACP in the Deep South, organized boycotts of
discriminatory businesses, and was assassinated in 1963 at the age of 37. Remember
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three young men who were
helping Blacks register to vote in Mississippi. They disappeared on the night
of June 21, 1964; and they were later found murdered. Remember the peaceful
marchers of Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. On that “Bloody Sunday,” those
marchers were brutally attacked by police officers using tear gas and billy
clubs. In fact, remember all the men
and women who peacefully demonstrated and were attacked with fire hoses, tear
gas, and police dogs because of their efforts to secure justice for all Americans! Yes, God calls us to be
just. And Jesus follows in the footsteps of the prophets who proclaimed that
unless there is justice for all, there is justice for none. Certainly justice
is worth dying for.
But if we are ready
to die for justice, then we also have to be ready to die for mercy. We all know
what that looks like; and we admire those people who die in the cause of mercy.
The Good Samaritan who stops to assist a stranded motorist and is herself hit
and killed by an oncoming vehicle died in the cause of mercy. But when we agree
that mercy is worth dying for, we have taken a step into territory that makes
most people very uncomfortable. When we are ready to die in the cause of mercy,
we give up our right to decide who is worthy of our sacrifice. Think about that
for just a minute. In the cause of mercy, we must be ready to die for anyone. When
a lifeguard sees a swimmer struggling in an ocean riptide, she doesn’t have the
luxury to decide whether or not that person is admirable or not. In the cause
of mercy, the lifeguard risks her life by going out into the water after that
swimmer. It was Jesus himself who set the example of dying in the cause of
mercy. When he died on the cross, he didn’t die just for the good folks. He
died for all of us – good folks, bad folks, people who are worthy of our love,
and folks who have earned our contempt. Like God’s love, mercy doesn’t pick and
choose who is worthy of it.
A few weeks ago, I
saw a performance of the opera “Dead Man Walking” at the Schuster Center in
Dayton. Some of you may have seen the movie of the same name. It tells the
story of Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun who has been the spiritual
advisor to a number of prison inmates on death row. That opera brought the
audience face to face with questions of good and evil, justice and mercy,
suffering and revenge, life and death. In one scene, Sister Helen was trying to
form a relationship with a condemned murderer who was facing his own execution.
She expressed her compassion for him, and she bravely declared that she would
stand with him throughout his prison ordeal. At that point, he looked her straight
in the eye and asked, “Would you die for me?” That, friends, is the question
that mercy asks all of us. “Would you die for me?” Are you ready to die for a
sinner as well as for a saint? Are you ready to die for a condemned murderer as
well as for your own child? Your answer to that question is your answer to
Jesus’ question, “Are you ready to die for the sake of mercy?”
If we claim to be
ready to follow Jesus, then we also have to be ready to carry a cross. And there
are crosses enough for all of us. Some of those crosses are very small. You can
carry a cross of that size and hide it in your pocket when the going gets tough.
If that’s all you can do, that’s OK! It’s a starting point! Most crosses are
medium sized, because I believe that most of us really are ready to die for
something that we believe in strongly. Those crosses can be difficult to carry.
But there are crosses that are even larger than that. Those are the ones that
the martyrs carry every single day. Jesus himself carried the largest cross of
all. He died in the cause of both justice and
mercy – justice for those who had none; and mercy for those who needed it. And
in the end, that’s all of us.
“If anyone would
come after me, that one must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for
my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it.” It is only by being
willing to die for the sake of justice and mercy that we find the abundant life
that Jesus offers to all of us. It is only by being willing to die that we will
truly live!
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