‘His’ Cross

On at least three occasions, the Lord Jesus told his followers that in order to be his disciple it was necessary they take up their cross and bear it. To his disciples in Matthew 10, he said, “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Luke quotes a similar statement made to great crowds: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

What’s striking about that in hindsight is that he said it well prior to going to the cross himself.

All three synoptic gospels describe the third occasion on which the Lord said much the same thing (the famous “what will it profit a man” speech). Matthew’s quote says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” We find the same story in both Mark 8:34 and Luke 9:23. The cost of discipleship was a common subtheme of the Lord’s earthly ministry.

A Possible Fourth Occasion

There is a possible fourth occasion of interest to completists. Mark’s version of the “rich young ruler” account has the Lord Jesus telling him, “Come, take up the cross, and follow me.”

A few things are notable about that instance. The clause does not appear in either parallel account, Matthew or Luke. It’s only found in the Textus Receptus of Mark (the Greek source document for the King James Version and a few others), not in the Latin Vulgate or any other early manuscripts. Most translators of our modern versions assume it was a late scribal accretion and omit it without even a footnote. Concerning it, the Expositor’s Greek Testament comments, “The last clause in T.R. about the cross is an obvious gloss by a scribe dominated by religious commonplaces.” It’s also different from all the others in that instead of being a comment about discipleship generally, it’s a direct command to the young man, the only occasion on which such a thing occurs. Again, it’s the only time a passage refers to taking up the cross. Everywhere else it is the more specific his cross. For all these reasons, I personally tend to discount it.

Early and Often

But whether we accept or reject the KJV rendering of Mark 10, the fact remains that in every synoptic gospel, the Lord Jesus urged his would-be followers to take up their crosses and come after him long before he ever went to the cross himself. Several possible explanations are entertained:

1. Knowing how their story ended, the writers of all three synoptics attributed to the Lord Jesus something he didn’t actually say.
2. Jesus knew he was going to the cross, so even if his disciples didn’t understand his meaning fully at that point, he could be sure they would understand it later on.
3. The spectacle of a man bearing his cross was a familiar one under Roman rule, so the Lord coined the expression knowing his audience would understand what he meant.
4. The Lord didn’t coin the expression. It was already part of the Greek vernacular. He just applied an existing metaphor his listeners understood to his relationship with his disciples.

The second and third options are both valid possibilities. Jesus repeatedly predicted his own crucifixion. The fourth option seems remotely conceivable, but I would want an example or two from early first century Greek to entertain it seriously. As to the first option, any believer in the inspiration of scripture rejects it out of hand: that all three synoptic writers invented exactly the same fabricated quote on not one but multiple occasions is so staggeringly unlikely the possibility does not exist.

Back to the First Century

What we can say with a fair bit of confidence is that the Lord’s original audience did not hear any of these statements exactly as we do.

At one extreme, the “cross to bear” has today become a metaphor used so casually that it may refer to nothing worse than an unpleasant situation one cannot avoid: a bad day at the office, a nagging wife or unemployable husband, even recurring car trouble. The original readers of the gospels would never have been so frivolous. They had a vivid mental image of what a condemned man bearing a cross looked like. They knew where he was going and what he would shortly experience. We do not.

At the other extreme, with the Lord’s crucifixion in mind, many Christians read it as encouraging a sort of anticipatory martyrdom, something like “In order to follow me, you must be prepared to die” as a precondition to eternal salvation. Not yet possessing and enjoying Christ’s explicit promises of the Father’s house, the Lord’s Jewish followers would have been unlikely to understand it that way.

Neither extreme accurately unpacks the Lord’s imagery for modern readers.

My Cross, Not His, Not Yours

First, we should note that the Lord repeatedly referred to “his cross”, the cross of the disciple. Several errors of interpretation are to be avoided:

• First, unlike the Lord’s, a disciple’s cross is not redemptive. Where the metaphor is concerned, we must put aside any association between the cross and the redemption of the world. We are not to bear the Lord’s cross but our own. Jesus bore burdens we will never bear and endured violations from which the most enthusiastic wannabe martyr would run screaming. We have no part in the atoning work of Christ. We are merely its beneficiaries and heralds.
• Second, a disciple’s cross is not a work. We must not imagine for a moment that in identifying ourselves daily and publicly with the Lord Jesus we are doing anything meritorious insofar as our own personal salvation is concerned. He accomplished that for us once for all at his cross. Even the noblest discipleship efforts add nothing to that.
• Third, a disciple’s cross is not ordinary misfortune. Our cross is not merely the various hardships and sorrows inevitable in a fallen world. It is not cancer, poverty or losing loved ones, as painful as those things may be. If it were, the Lord would not have urged his followers to take it up; they could not possibly avoid doing so, saved or unsaved, disciple or apostate.
• Fourth, one disciple’s cross is not another’s. Following Jesus may not cost me what it costs you. The Master may do as he will with those in his service. As the Lord said to Peter, “If it is my will that he [John] remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

Dying Every Day

As unpleasant as the process may be, dying is relatively easy. You only have to do it once. Living for Christ requires dying to self every day and in every way.

Taking up the cross and bearing it is not the same as being crucified. Rather, it is the long walk toward Calvary on the heels of the Savior. It is the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering, the path of shame, sorrow and alienation that Jesus took under the condemnation of the Roman government and the rejection of his own people. It is less about death itself than it is about walking through this world entirely divorced from the pull of its spiritual gravity, rejected by it and in thrall to a higher purpose. Luke’s version has the Lord saying, “Let him deny himself and take up his cross daily.” You can only be crucified once, but you can take up your cross repeatedly.

The Lord’s expressed intent here is not merely that a very small subset of his followers over the course of history join him in death because they identify with him, though his words certainly allow for that possibility. Martyrdom is one possible ending for any follower of Christ, though we must confess that the number of Christian martyrs is orders of magnitude smaller than the total number of Christians. Rather, I believe the Lord’s intent is that ALL his followers (“If anyone would come after me”) go through life in a state of identification with him and rejection of the pull of self-interest and self-preservation, whether or not it ever costs them their lives. For the vast majority of us, it does not.

So then, to take up our cross is to experience willingly the daily consequences of identifying with our rejected Lord.