Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

As I grew up in West Texas, it was common to hear references to one’s bearing the cross. Usually the reference was to individual suffering that caused great distress. A person might suffer a particular chronic illness. Parents might have had to deal with a child with a permanent disability. A teacher might have a particularly trouble-making pupil. There would often be a kind of “stoic” response by the affected people, “That is the cross that I must bear,” they would say.

The expression is still used today, and it indicates a type of suffering which is experienced passively. It is an uninvited suffering. It is that kind of thing that just “happens” like the bumper sticker says it. The expression, “That is the cross that I must bear,” expresses a fate which befalls us. It is not the result of a choice. No decision caused the suffering.

“Bearing a cross” in our culture is not the same thing as bearing the cross in the gospels. Jesus said to the crowd, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

Jesus issues a challenge to make a decision that will necessarily result in a denial of self and a type of suffering that conforms to that of Jesus Christ.

We can hardly understand Jesus’ call to discipleship as it is presented in the gospels. We live in a very individualistic world. In our American churches we are asked to make decisions about Jesus that have more to do with private piety and personal choices. It was clear to me growing up in the Bible Belt that the preacher’s call to make a decision for Christ was a call to fit in. It was a call to conform to the world as it was understood by the religious community. It was the individual’s responsibility to conform.

It is no wonder that the symbol of bearing one’s cross became such a passive expression of human existence. Since those days in which Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States, we have been aware of a strange paradox. The more freedom we have as human beings, the more we submit to a slavery to the majority or dominant part of society. It is called “democratic conformism.” The individual is constantly pressured to conform to the dominant ideal.

Religion can play a role in this conformity. The call to decision often was a call to fit in so that the individual could silence the dissonance and discomfort of standing out or being perceived as “different.” Thus, it is that bearing one’s cross became more of a pathetic description of our poor lot as human beings who are not only mortal but also subject to the tragic cycles of existence. We are reduced to the image of creatures running for cover, the cover offered by the mob or by Madison Avenue or by the religious zeal.

Religion has tended to promise a heavenly reward for those who were willing to suffer the conditions of conformity. That was to be the pay off. Stick it out here and you will then be eligible for a good pay off. “Bear your cross.” Bear it passively, and above all bear it quietly.

The cross to which Jesus refers is not such a figurative notion as we have come to understand it. When Jesus called on disciples to deny themselves, bear their cross, and follow him, it was a call to a new kind of resistance to the powers that dominated the Jewish world of his day.

The Romans had a stranglehold on the world. They were quick and ferocious in their efforts to maintain that hold over the subjugated peoples. The main instrument used to maintain their hold was through a patronage system. Everyone in the Roman empire knew to whom they were beholden. They did what was required to maintain their place in the system.

If the patronage system did not work, Rome used fear as a means of maintaining their hold over the people. Those outside the system were treated ruthlessly. This was especially true of the Jewish groups who struggled against Roman rule. Nowhere is this more clear than in the use of the cross for crucifying anyone who complained, protested, or resisted Roman rule.

Hear this description from the New Testament historian, Martin Hengel:

Crucifixion was and remained a political and military punishment. . . . Among the Romans it was inflicted above all on the lower classes, i.e., slaves, violent criminals, and the unruly elements in rebellious provinces, not least Judea. . . . These were primarily people who on the whole had no rights, in other words, groups whose development had to be suppressed by all possible means to safeguard law and order in the state. (Crucifixion: Fortress Press, p. 86f.)

What did Jesus mean when he called for his disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him? Was Jesus a revolutionary inviting his followers to take up arms? No, that is not what he means.

The call of Jesus is not first a call to oppose the enemy. First and foremost it is a call to embrace the kingdom to which Jesus gives witness in his message, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has drawn near.” Jesus’ invitation to return to God and to trust that God’s rule will be established is an invitation to courage. It is an invitation to become a witness to the mercy and grace of God which is God’s glory. It is an invitation to take a stand but not the violent stand of the criminal, of the police state, or of democratic conformism which results in the largest prison population in the world and a high degree of mental illness.

Dear congregation, in baptism we are buried with Christ so that new life might spring forth. It is not the passive life of hiding and not becoming what we were created to be. It is a life of courage to live.

Or take it from a person of extreme courage in the face of the threat of the empire. Martin Luther, who stood before emperors and kings, explains the meaning of baptism for those who really want to belong to Christ Jesus.

It means that our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.

St. Paul writes in Romans 6: “We were buried therefore with him by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

To walk in newness of life is to take up the cross of Jesus and to bear the uncertainty of life while trusting in the certainty of God’s lordship in the world which we proclaim every time we proclaim that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.