Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

Taking up the cross.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

In an email to a friend, in which I identified with his current struggles and sadness, I talked about how I seem to repeatedly give my worries and troubles to God but refuse to let Him keep them:

[It's that] daily struggle of picking up Christ's cross daily and not also picking up the junk of our own that he wants us to let him hold. We can't carry both. We can't pick up the cross and carry it if our hands and our shoulders are already full of worries and concerns over things that we can't control anyway.

Luke 9:23 tells us we need to deny ourselves, take up the cross daily, and follow Christ. The larger passage of Luke 9:23-27 has always been difficult and puzzling to me* on many levels (verse 27, for example), but the section on picking up the cross I've began to understand differently.

23 And He was saying to them all, If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. ²⁴For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. ²⁵ For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? ²⁶ For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷ But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.

I've heard verse 23 preached as if the concept of deny was solely about shedding comforts, wants, control, or the things we hold onto that are based in love of self. That seems to be the easy and obvious meaning, and the more useful one to preach to keep us all on task from being selfish and lazy. But as I've come to think about what it means to pick up the cross daily, some questions came to mind.

What is the cross? Is it the same as Jesus' yoke, which is light? Why did Jesus have to remind us to take it up every day? What is it about us that would cause us to say we follow Christ but need to be reminded to make the decision to do it each day? What does that tell me about the nature of being a follower of Christ? And why do I have to deny myself in order to pick up the cross each day?

For some people, sadness, depression, and even self-hatred are like huge boulders weighing down upon the heart and soul all the time, daily. The burden is tremendous, even though it is selfish in its own way, since focus on self leads to a view of problems seeming larger than they are, a skewed perspective on life. It is both unwanted but difficult to let go of. The weight of that burden makes it impossible to carry anything or anyone else. It is all encompassing and bottomless and dark and the thought of picking up the cross seems unbearable, even too much to ask, even if the cross is the method by which we are helped to release that onerous weight and be free.

How can I carry the cross when I am carrying all the destructive things God wants to take from me?

In this way, I must deny myself the easy darkness I slip into, that uncomfortable comfort of sadness, in order to pick up the cross.

I closed out my email with this:

I'll keep praying for you. You do the same for me. It helps to pray for others, I've found, because I stop focusing on my problems as I lift another up in prayer and then I find that while I did that, Christ lifts me up.

Deny your SELF. Pick up the cross daily.

Lift up others and be lifted up.

* I'm sure theologically educated brothers and sisters in Christ can tell me the proper context, the original meanings of the original languages, and use their knowledge to wipe away these questions, but frankly, I'm not interested. I believe all that education is well and good, but that if the Bible truly is inspired and God reveals it to us as we read it, such knowledge is not a requirement. And, that sometimes, such knowledge is a stumbling block for those who grow comfortable in it.

Labels: bible, christianity, personal