The Daily Dare

The Daily Dare--October 1, 2018

[Jesus said,] "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.  What does it profit them if they gain the whole world , but lose or forfeit themselves?" [Luke 9:22-25]

There is really only one challenge from Jesus; he just keeps putting it to us again and again in different words.  And the one challenge of Jesus is nothing more and nothing less than the cross.  Daily.

That challenge, it turns out, also is the key to a life that is rich with joy, full of meaning, overflowing with love, and tempered with strength.  It is, as Bonhoeffer once put it, "the only true life there is," even at the same time as Jesus' challenge will cost us our old lives and our old selves.

But let's get it clear from the outset that there is no Christian life without the cross--and that the cross is each of ours to carry on a daily basis.  There is no indication anywhere in the New Testament that Jesus envisioned his followers would have it easier because they named his name, or that being known as a Christian would get them better jobs or more promotions.  There is no promise from Jesus at all that following him would make his followers seem more respectable in anybody else's eyes, or would make us more popular, more prosperous, or more prestigious.  Not a bit of any of that.

In fact, Jesus advertises this very point, precisely by using the image of "taking up a cross."  That isn't just a metaphor for generalized suffering, even though people sometimes use it that way today.  Sure, today, we talk about any  sort of inconvenience as a "cross to bear"--things like, "My kids are sick and I have to stay home with them, but I guess that's my cross to bear," or "I was driving down the road and someone cut me off in traffic--must be my cross to bear."  No--in fact, in Jesus' day, they had a word for the general inconveniences, common troubles, and ordinary sufferings of daily life:  they called it life.  That's how life is.  That's just the way life is for everybody--sick kids, bad drivers, and a whole host of other daily troubles.  These are not even close to what it means to carry a cross, because you can keep your dignity doing any of those other things.

But carrying a cross isn't just about losing your comfort, or about physical suffering.  To take up a cross is a total loss of reputation and respect in Jesus' usage.  That's because a cross wasn't just a means of dying in the time of the Roman Empire--it was a means of humiliating someone.  To be executed on a cross was Rome's way of saying not just that you were going to die, but that you were dying as an enemy of the state.  Rome thought they were doing a public service when they crucified someone--they were making an example of the troublemakers, so that there could be peace on the streets.  

On top of that, to be crucified by the Romans was to be stripped of any dignity and appearance of strength.  After all, to be crucified made you look--at least in the empire's eyes--like a wimp, like a pushover, like a weakling.  Rome reveled in crucifying people the same way bullies relish picking on smaller kids to try and make themselves feel bigger.  To be crucified was to be subject to the mockery of the crowds who might have said, "Poor, poor schmucks--they were nice, but in the end, they just weren't tough enough to go toe-to-toe with the real powers in Rome."  To be crucified was to be made weak, and the message Rome intended to send was clearly, "The weak will be crushed, because they are losers.  We are the real power--you can tell because we are the ones holding the hammer."

And to be clear, this is what Jesus calls all of us into.  This isn't just reserved for Jesus, and this isn't an exception to the usual order of things.  But Jesus calls all of us to take up our crosses, and in doing so, to let go of the old definitions of what bravery, courage, dignity, and power look like.  When Jesus calls all of us, his followers, to take up our crosses as well, it means that the cross becomes our picture of courage. The cross becomes the measure of true strength.  And the cross--including all of the shame, humiliation, and weakness that come with it--becomes our pattern for life as well.

This is really, really, really important, because sometimes you'll hear Respectable Religious Folks today saying that there is some other picture of courage or strength for Christians in "real life" situations.  You'll hear folks say that Jesus' kind of suffering love and gentle compassion is ok "for him," because he's "supposed" to die on a cross... but that disciples today really need to get tough and fight dirty and shrug off suffering love in favor of a street-fighter's mentality.  You'll hear that Jesus' way is just fine for leaders "in church," but for actually living in the big, wide, "real" world, you have to make sure you are the one holding the hammer rather than taking the nails.

And in case it were not already obvious, this is absolute horse-fertilizer.  

Jesus has one challenge for us--and it is always and only the challenge of the cross.  It means surrendering our old notions of what strength looks like, what toughness looks like, and what victory looks like, and seeing them through the lens of the tortured human form of Jesus of Nazareth, stripped bare and strung up by the empire.  That is our new picture of what endurance looks like.  That is our new picture of love.  That is our new picture of strength and toughness--the ability to endure such evil, such hatred, and such violence, without giving in to return in to the ones with the hammers in their hands.

So today, friends, let's allow Jesus to challenge us on his own terms, as he has a way of doing.  Let's allow Jesus to challenge us to be willing to lose our reputations for the sake of Jesus' kind of love.  Let's allow Jesus to dare us to give up on trying to play by the world's rules.  Let's allow Jesus to speak, and then let us dare to take our crosses, not just this day, but every day.

Lord Jesus, we hear your challenge, and we dare to go where you lead us, even if it means losing ourselves as we lay down our lives for others.