Christian Pure
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What Does It Mean to Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus?

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • Jesus says “take up his cross” in Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34 and Luke 9:23, right after he first tells his disciples that he must suffer and die.
  • In the Roman world a condemned man carried his own cross to his execution, so the words meant being ready to give up even life itself to follow Jesus.
  • Luke adds the word “daily,” and Christians have heard in it the small, repeated dyings of a faithful life.
  • To deny yourself is to put Christ before everything, your own life included, and Jesus promises that whoever loses his life for his sake shall find it.
  • Catholic teaching, Thomas à Kempis, John Calvin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Orthodox Church, which reads Mark 8:34 on the Sunday of the Cross in Lent, all hear the saying as a call to every believer.
  • Ordinary suffering can become part of the cross when it is carried for Christ’s sake, but the saying never asks anyone to seek out pain or stay where they are harmed.

To take up your cross is to accept whatever following Jesus costs, every day, up to life itself. In Jesus’ world a man carrying a cross was a condemned man on the road to his death, so the words meant letting go of your claim on your own life and walking behind him (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). Luke tells us of one man who did it in the plainest sense. As the soldiers led Jesus out of Jerusalem,…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
  • The Bible, King James Version, from BibleGateway: Matthew 10:37–38, 11:29, 16:24–25; Mark 8:31–35; Luke 9:23, 14:25–27, 23:26; John 19:17; 1 Corinthians 15:31; 2 Corinthians 4:10; Galatians 2:20; Hebrews 12:2; 1 Peter 2:21. biblegateway.com
  • Plutarch, On the Delay of the Divine Justice, trans. Andrew P. Peabody (Boston, 1885), Project Gutenberg. gutenberg.org
  • Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews II.5, trans. William Whiston, Project Gutenberg. gutenberg.org
  • John Chrysostom, Homily 55 on the Gospel of Matthew, trans. George Prevost, rev. M. B. Riddle, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 10 (1888). newadvent.org
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 618 and 1435. 618, 1435
  • Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book II, chapter 12, trans. William Benham, Project Gutenberg. gutenberg.org
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, chapter 8, trans. Henry Beveridge, Christian Classics Ethereal Library. ccel.org
  • Soo-Inn Tan, “The Call to Die,” Graceworks (19 April 2018), quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller (Touchstone, 1995), p. 89. graceworks.com.sg
  • Internet Archive catalogue record: The Cost of Discipleship, “Translated from the German by R.H. Fuller” (Macmillan, 1961). archive.org
  • Fortress Press, Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works vol. 4 (originally published 1937). fortresspress.com
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” Holocaust Encyclopedia. encyclopedia.ushmm.org
  • Orthodox Church in America, “3rd Sunday of Great Lent: Veneration of the Cross” and the day’s Scripture readings (Mark 8:34–9:1). oca.org, readings
  • Orthodox Church in America, “Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople.” oca.org
  • Cambridge Dictionary, “a (heavy) cross to bear.” dictionary.cambridge.org

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