Reflection -- Taking Up Your Cross

Last week’s reflection mentioned Noah’s ark as a biblical symbol of the refuge from a troubled world the church, the community of believers, provides to us.  Gratitude for what God does for us through Jesus and our baptism into the faith community is certainly an appropriate focus for our Lenten reflections, but there is more to the story.  God provides comfort and healing where it is needed, but we are not restored just so that we can sit back and relax.  Once we have been restored, God expects us to move on to service.  That is the focus of this week’s biblical text.

Our model is none other than Jesus.  This passage reflects that he approached the end of his earthly journey knowing the full price of faithful, selfless service.  Peter, motivated by love for Jesus, tries to dissuade him from following the path set before him.  Jesus is not moved, for he knows that things do not look the same through God’s eyes as they do through ours.  He would go on to change the world forever by following his destiny, even though it must surely have looked like commitment to a path leading toward defeat through Peter’s pre-resurrection eyes.

Jesus’ life and teaching present the central paradox of a life faithfully lived:  “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Yes, God offers refuge and healing.  That is certainly a gift worthy of celebration, but if we stop there we will never realize our full potential.  We will have regained our lives, but we will also have lost them for we will never know who we really are and the full potential of the gifts that God has given us.  Worse still, we will miss having an intimate encounter with our risen Savior.  We can study and learn many facts about Jesus, and it is appropriate to do so, but it is only in answering the call, “follow me,” that we finally discover the true reality of Jesus and taste our own life at its fullest.  At times the road that Jesus leads us down will be rocky, but taking any other way is a pale substitute for fully living.

revclay

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Mark 8:31-38 

    Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.  He said all this quite openly.  And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.  But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." 

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?  Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?  Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

[NRSV]