Matthew 16:24 – No, Jesus isn’t going to take up your cross for you

In this blog I’m going to write about one of those pesky verses in the gospels that we all know is there yet it’s often easier to pretend it isn’t, Matthew 16:24: “Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me.’”

Take up your cross

What does ‘take up your cross’ mean?

For me, it’s about taking on whatever obstacle stands between you and Christ: trauma, addiction, disempowerment. Those immovable issues that seem to dog us forever.

I often see people in church petitioning God or Jesus to wave a magic wand and make such issues disappear. This is naïve wishful thinking with no basis in reality. No, Jesus isn’t going to take up your cross for you.

In Matthew 16:24, Jesus tells us there is no easy way. There is no back-tracking or skirting the issue if you genuinely want root cause resolution. The only way out is through.

“Take up your cross” is an invitation to walk your own personal calvary to deal with whatever is afflicting you—your own crucifixion on the cross of fear and shame.

At the centre of that cross lies the reason behind every stuck issue: irresponsibility.

Irresponsibility

Our ‘crosses’ are the parts of our lives where we haven’t been able to assume emotional responsibility for resolving them, which often involves—as Jesus does—speaking truth to power. It also requires us to feel all the unfelt pain and shame of those issues.

Jesus addresses this in the next verse, Matthew 16:25: “If you want to save your life you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” If you stay as you are and don’t resolve stuck issues, they will gnaw at you till they destroy you. Take responsibility—as Jesus demonstrates—and break free.

This issue of irresponsibility is why Jesus (or God) isn’t going to pick up our cross and carry it for us. Christ can support us from within, but we must choose to “take up your cross” and follow Jesus’ example as he proceeds magnificently through his own calvary.

By picking up our cross we take responsibility for shouldering its burden and bringing about necessary change.

Making gods

Why does Jesus encourage us to take emotional responsibility for our own lives?

Matthew 21:21 (John 14:12 is similar) reads: “If you have faith and don’t doubt, I promise you can do what I did to this tree [cause it to die]. And you will be able to do even more. You can tell this mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will.”

These are Godlike powers—and Jesus tells us we shall do all this and more. As French philosopher Henri Bergson wrote, “the universe is a machine for making gods.”

The gospels are not instructions for righteous living and moral rectitude. They’re manuals to educate infant gods in training. The mark of the master is not only skill but, first and foremost, responsibility.

God’s laws ensure such powers are only given out responsibly. Taking up our cross is the demonstration of that responsibility. Only when we will not act irresponsibly under any conditions whatsoever will be access such powers.

Now, will you take up your cross and follow Jesus?

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash