Take Up Your Cross by Jonathan Rhoad

Good Friday. Could there be a more confusingly named day? What could be good about the wisest man to ever live—a prodigy who astounded at the age of twelve, who fed the hungry, healed the sick and blind, cast out demons, even raised the dead—being tortured and killed, nailed to a tree, a death reserved for the lowest of criminals? Some had called him a prophet. Perhaps his own words can guide us through this mystery.

Early in his ministry, he told them that he would be taken away, speaking of a groom and his guests (Mark 2:20), but his disciples were not ready to understand yet. After following him through his ministry, they eventually and finally understood that He was the long-awaited Messiah! Since they began to understand, He started to teach them that He must suffer and die. After the miracles they had seen and the teaching with wisdom and authority they had heard, Peter, consumed with man’s thinking and not God’s, still tried to talk him out of it. (Mark 8) It was at this moment that he told the whole crowd they must “deny themselves and take up their cross” if they want to truly be his disciples. (Mark 8:34) Imagine if a respected teacher today said: “deny yourself and take up your lethal injection” to be their disciple? The cross was the punishment for the lowest, vilest criminals. Who would choose that?

Blessed with the whole story, we know that Christ was calling them to imitate him in giving their lives over to grace. Paul describes Christ’s grace: “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8) Imagine the multitude of tiny acts of grace He showed to His disciples; the endless patience as they misunderstood His teaching; the woman at the well; His acceptance of the outcasts of society. This is the life that He is calling us to live. The world tells us to watch out for ourselves and to be independent and, therefore, “free.” But Christ teaches us to truly be free we must give up our own desires and live for the good of others. That is what he did throughout his ministry, and that is what he did on the cross.

On the eve of His trial and death, He declared, “No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Most of us will never be faced with the choice to literally die in someone else’s place. So what do these teachings of denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and laying down our lives for others mean to us, day-to-day? This is what Jason has been teaching about—dissident discipleship. Christ calls us to take up our crosses, to lay down our lives—not in one dramatic gesture, but daily! A daunting idea. To achieve this, we don’t need to turn our world upside-down. We can act simply, out of love, out of consideration. We can do the next right thing.

So why is Good Friday good? Good Friday is good because it is the culmination of the grace that Jesus brought to the world. It was the day that Christ made clear his love for us. It was the day that He ended the need for blood sacrifice. He laid His life down for us, His friends. He showed us what true grace means, by giving us the most precious gift, a gift we could never earn, a gift that we disdain whenever we turn our backs on the least of these, but that He gave freely nonetheless. It is up to us to go forth and show that grace to the world.