Rev. Blake Shipman
Deny yourself, pick up your cross, Follow me. This small list of requests looms large in the season of Lent. In a society ordered upon labeling and sorting nearly everything and everyone this reality Jesus paints makes us pause and ask ourselves what does it really mean to follow Jesus? Dietrich Bonhoeffer the German theologian turned martyr said it best in his work Discipleship, “those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus’s death”. To follow Jesus’s footsteps is to enter a new reality where we will die; die to ourselves and the society around us as well as physically die. This rhythm of life has held firm since the crucifixion. There is no escaping this, there is no pausing this, we will bear the weight of the crosses we put upon ourselves, and we will die.
While the lawful nature of this reality is prevalent in this text, I also find that there is often a freedom in this text that we don’t acknowledge. To deny ourselves is to die to the labels society thrusts upon us. In its place, we are free to be children of God fully as we are. To take up our cross is to enter a storied way with the saints alongside us. Yes, the burden is heavy, yet we walk side by side sharing our burdens with the one who forged the path for us. To follow Jesus is to trust in the triune God completely for anything and everything in our lives to the point where we acknowledge daily that all good gifts come from the one who sent the only begotten son to invite us onto this path of discipleship. So come, pick up your cross, follow the one who takes your cross and sin upon himself, and be freed for as Bonhoeffer says, “When we know only him then we also no longer know the pain of our own cross. Then we see only him.”
