February 25, 2024

I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning the question I want us to have in mind is: what does it mean to carry our cross? What does it mean to carry our cross?

We can find crosses in lots of places. Many of us have one in our homes – maybe made of polished wood or carved out of stone. They’re in virtually every Christian church – we have a lovely one which often leads our processions in and out on Sunday mornings. Some of us even wear them as jewelry or necklaces or have them tattooed on us. Sometimes they’re crucifixes that show Jesus’ broken body, but otherwise they’re usually bare and unadorned.

This shouldn’t surprise us. Forget candles or pulpits or communion rails or statues of saints. The cross is the symbol that every Christian shares. It marks our unity even in the midst of theological and liturgical diversity. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the defining center of his mission to reconcile the world to God.

Today’s Gospel reading makes that point very clearly. Jesus is up front with the disciples – telling them his messianic ministry won’t lead to a restored Israel’s power and glory, but instead to rejection and suffering and death and – resurrection??? And Peter loses his mind, telling Jesus he’s just plain wrong.

Peter seems to have hit a nerve, because Jesus doubles down – showing us just how important this lesson is. Calling the crowd together, Jesus reveals with brutal honesty the cost of discipleship. His would be followers must take up their very own cross. Imagine following Jesus as he wanders around Galilee doing the most amazing things, thinking that life with him is going to be all sunshine and roses, only to hear that message. It must have hit his hearers like a punch in the gut. Discipleship as self-denial and suffering? We have to take up our own crosses to follow Jesus? No thanks, I’ll pass. Maybe I’ll wait around for the next Messiah.

Peter – and others in the crowd – would have had this strong reaction because the cross was an instrument of violence and painful execution. Only condemned criminals were executed using this barbaric method. Someone who “took the cross” would carry its horizontal beam through jeering crowds to the site of their own execution. It was one of the worst fates you could imagine.

And yet, that’s what Jesus demands – not only from his disciples, but from those hope to become his disciples. From you and me. In this passage, Jesus isn’t calling us to be bishops or priests or deacons. He isn’t calling us to be members of a church. Jesus simply calls us to discipleship – to commit ourselves to a journey of faith with God. And according to Jesus, that journey requires the carrying of a cross.

It's not a terribly inspiring sermon so far, is it?

So, I want to come back to the question we started with. What does it mean to carry our cross? If I had to guess, I’d say when most of us think of taking up our cross, we think of suffering that’s visited upon us. A chronic, long-term illness. The death of a parent, or a spouse, or a child, or some other loved one. The loss of a job or a career. Or any other tragedy outside our control.

But that’s not what Jesus is talking about today. The cross Jesus went to was one of his own choosing. He could have avoided it if he’d wanted to – if he’d taken Peter’s easy way out. But instead, Jesus models a sacrificial journey of faith for us. One where every act of mercy toward the powerless brought him one step closer toward the cross. Jesus didn’t take the cross because he was actually a criminal. He took it because his ministry undermined the powers of the world.

Yes, the cross involves death and suffering. But if that’s all the cross means to us, then we’re missing something vital. Because Jesus’ choice to take the cross shows the length to which God will go to cultivate human flourishing. The length to which God will go to break the barriers that hinder our relationship with God.

I love the way Deacon Vicki sends us back out into the world each Sunday: calling us to intentionally act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly in Jesus’ name. And I don’t know about you, but I walk out of here meaning to do that. I mean to carry the cross Jesus calls me to. Not the cross where I suffer for suffering’s sake. But the cross I claim by serving others through self-giving acts of love. But then I have to go grocery shopping or take my kids to volleyball or get ready for a Vestry meeting or get my five-mile run in, and I forget all about it. My discipleship journey falls by the wayside. It makes me think that we ought to trade our nametags for crosses on our way out the door. To remind us throughout the week of Jesus’ call to join in his mission of reconciliation. His mission of breaking the barriers that prevent human flourishing.

And so I wonder. We see Jesus’ cross everywhere. But what about the crosses Jesus calls each and every Christian to carry as his disciples? What are those acts of compassion, or justice, or mercy that we resist – like Peter – because we’re afraid of what they might cost us? Those are our crosses, my friends. And there is power in carrying them. Power in carrying them with Jesus down paths of self-giving love and service to others. Power in those acts of justice and peace that confront a society that has spent generations trading genuine connectedness among the human family for all kinds of poor substitutes.

And so, my friends, throw yourselves into those costly, frightening, beautiful acts of sacrificial love – and follow Jesus step by step on the path of discipleship. Follow him on the path that leads to your cross – one that is not a shameful end, but one which brings new life for all. Amen.