Matthew 10: 38
"Take Up The Cross."

This morning, we have had a baptism and it seems to be a very appropriate time to bring up the subject, though most of us in a bad frame of mind might be quite happy that it didn't get dragged in at this point. But Christianity is always bringing up things that many people would rather not hear.

I. BUT FIRST, LET US THINK FOR A MOMENT ABOUT THE TEXT AND ITS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.

1. There are 5 places in the correct text of the N.T. where this phrase of "taking up the cross" occurs in a context of discipleship but there are probably only 2 historical reports which are repeated among the first 3 Gospels.  But the fact that the 3 Apostles all mentioned the statement at least once gives us an indication of their thought that it was very important.  I say "apostles" -plural, because I am convinced that Mark and Luke were mere amanuenses -- secretaries for Peter and Paul who gave the 2nd and 3rd Gospels their authority by their apostolic imprimatur.

2. It is a very shocking truth. From the way the expression "take up the cross" is used in these 5 passages and in the description of our Lord's bearing his cross to Golgotha, it appears that it was standard procedure for a criminal to carry his own cross to his execution and probably also shows that it was a common expression of figurative martyrdom.

3. In later history the expression was perverted.  In the crusades, the volunteers were said to "take up the cross" before they sewed a large cross to their garment and went off plunder, maim, burn and murder the Easterners holding Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

So too, also the idea of bejeweled ladies having delicate crosses hanging from a chain around their neck or from their ears -- or even a cross with our dear Lord hanging upon it as an article of jewelry would have shocked the early Christians.

4. Remember the fact that to these people to whom Jesus was speaking, the cross was a horrible, revolting, cursed symbol.  The later N.T. used it as a symbol of the Lord's atonement but for these people it was a ghastly thing.  It would have had all the aesthetic appeal of a gallows with a noose dangling from it.

But Jesus said this in Matthew 10 and on at least one other occasion recorded by Matthew in his Gospel in chapter 16.

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." 

The context in that passage in Matthew 16 and its parallels in Mark and Luke was that the Lord had told the disciples about the coming rejection of him by the religious leaders and Peter had presumptuously tried to prevent it from happening, daring even to rebuke the Lord.  The Lord rebuked him sharply and this statement of the Lord follows:

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 

1. Clearly the expression is metaphorical. Otherwise everyone who became a true Christian would have been martyred by crucifixion.  It clearly means taking the path of difficulty, hardship, persecution and sometimes even martyrdom by crucifixion or other means.

2. So too, there is hyperbole here which was a constant teaching device of the Lord.  (It would be interesting to go through the gospels and find hyperboles that people in later history have taken literally -- sometimes with terrible personal cost or of serious doctrinal error. It would be a long list.)  Here the idea of losing ones life is hyperbolic and equated with the main hyperbole of being crucified. It clearly refers to a life of self-denial, difficulty, sacrificial service and the like but it could, indeed, well include martyrdom.  It did for the large majority of the disciples Jesus was speaking to.  Historical tradition says that only John died a natural death.

3. And the question of who is described by this "taking up the cross and losing his life" is important.  In Luke 14: 27, on another occasion from the one in Matthew 16, the Lord makes this "taking up the cross" a requirement for his disciples: "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."

Discipleship is sometimes used by Christian teachers to refer to an elite class of Christians but in the N.T. it clearly refers to all supposed Christians.  The word matheiteis simply means a follower, a learner, an apprentice.  And clearly in the N.T. it is not used to designate a "super-Christian" but just a Christian, a Christian indeed.

Clearly, Jesus is referring to those who, like ourselves have come to Jesus and are following him in the ethical and religious sense and believe that they have received eternal life.

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 

III. NOW THINK ABOUT THIS!

1. I have brought this up today because baptism is really the ordinance which is the sacramental equivalent of "taking up the cross".  It is unfortunate that it is not seen in this true light. But among many mildly religious people it is a kind of religious lark or a good luck charm or a ceremony for giving a new baby a name.

When the believing parent presents his baby for holy baptism he is giving him not only to our faith in the Savior, calling on God to save him but he is also giving that covenant infant over to God to live a life of cross-bearing and is appealing to and trusting God to make both of the these things effectual by his sovereign grace.  "This promise is to you and to your children," Peter said to the assembled multitude on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2.

2. And when a youth or an adult presents himself to be baptized, he is personally expressing faith in the Savior and promises to follow him, to "take up his cross and follow" him all the days of his life.

Thankfully, in our culture this "taking up the cross" does not usually imply possible martyrdom but we remind ourselves that all over the world there are places where it does mean that just as really as it did in N.T. times. 

1. If you are a Christian in something other than the sociological sense, you are a disciple of Jesus and have taken up the cross even if no one told you that it was so.  This responsibility may one day descend upon your consciousness all at once and be quite upsetting.  Christian faith is not a matter of fun and games and social networking and seeking out nice people.  It is dead serious; sometimes literally so!

2. It applies in the matter of cheerfully following God in his providential guidance in your life without complaint; without bitterness; without blaming God for "letting you down" or not protecting you in what you think is an acceptable level of protection.  This applies to career matters; to economic matters; to comfortably of life matters; to health matters. 

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 

3. It applies to the Kingdom of God and of Christ having high priority in your life.  It is not a matter of letting what is left over after you have spent and invested and enjoyed and squandered like your peers in the world -- letting what's left be divided up with God and your creditors -- as if to say that God was no better than a creditor in a bankruptcy court.  It is rather that God's kingdom and God's agenda would have high priority, at the top of your list.  It is a matter of a simplified and sanctified and frugal life so that you have the funds and the time and the energy to serve God in the way in which he has called you to serve him.

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 

4. It involves having the grace and the insight and the discipline of seeing that -- for the child of God -- the main goal and agenda is not that of these very few years that the longest life is but that our eternal blessedness and eternal glorification of the triune God is the agenda and goal of our existence.

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."