Taking Up the Cross

Year B Lent 2—Sermon—Armidale Uniting Church

The cross was an instrument of torture, humiliation and death. The Romans used it to ensure the most painful, shameful death for criminals and dissidents. Not only was it shameful and painful for those put to death on it; but also for their families and their communities. Often retribution upon families and communities would accompany the public execution of crucifixion victims. Crosses were designed to make sure that the many peoples whom the Romans had conquered were well aware of the consequences of crimes against the might of Rome. So painful and shameful was the cross as instrument of oppression that it was not until the late second century that it became widespread as the symbol for Christianity. Carrying a cross was about being lead out in humiliation in order to die; and about the accompanying humiliation and hurt meted out to families and communities. And yet here in the Gospel of Mark, we have Jesus enjoining his disciples to “take up their crosses” in order to follow in the way of Christ.

Now around about this time, you may just be thinking: “Oh no, not another sermon about taking up our crosses. I have enough in my life to contend with. I don’t need reminding that living is painful. And I certainly don’t need to be told that following Jesus is about thinking I’m a worm and that whatever my self is is useless. I’ve had enough of that from being alive.” And you’re right! That simple little clause that we take so much for granted in Christianity comes with huge baggage. “Take up your cross” has been used to exhort people into crusades against those of other faiths. It has been used to humiliate and deny the valid contributions of members of the body of Christ. It has been used to justify all kinds of suffering and to ignore the real problems of social and political oppression. “Take up your cross!”

The Gospel of Mark is, of course, quite concerned with oppression: political oppression by the Romans; physical and spiritual oppression by disease and demons; religious oppression by overly zealous religious leaders. Indeed, there are so many, many stories in Mark about people being released from oppression that this theme of willing suffering is hard to believe when we first come up against it. If Jesus comes to free us, then what is all this talk of suffering about? And anyway, it doesn’t exactly sound like “good news”, does it? So we have to be careful when we’re reading this familiar passage. It would be easy to overlook its real significance, or to write it off because the dubious interpretations of it we have received in the past.

So let’s get some of those dubious interpretations out of the way. This passage is not about justifying victims being on the receiving end of violence. It is not about telling abused people to stay in situations of abuse. It is not about self-mortification for its own sake. It’s not about wearing hair shirts and whipping yourself with thorns to show how repentant you are. It’s not all about sublimating who you are for the sake of some impossible, ethereal, religious ideal of perfection. It’s not about ignoring oppression and victimisation because “we all have our cross to bear”. And it’s not about using the Gospel to victimise, oppress and abuse just as some these interpretations have victimised, oppressed and abused already victimised, oppressed and abused people.

Rather this passage is about the consequences of living a Christian Life, the consequences of following the way of Christ and of seeking to put into practice Gospel values and Gospel actions. And such consequences come about not because we submit to or ignore oppression, but because we challenge it.

The Romans did not crucify people who meekly submitted to being slaves, to having their communities overrun; and who offered no resistance. It was precisely those who challenged the might of the Romans who ended up on crosses. It was those who challenged their claims to property and persons; to sovereignty and to religious and spiritual supremacy who found themselves carrying their cross. Jesus is not saying, “Be meek and mild.” He’s saying, “Remember when you get so excited about all this stuff that it will have consequences. Be sure that you want to bear them. And don’t give me a fairytale view of where I’m going either. I know what’s ahead and I know it’s going to be nasty. So if you really believe this stuff about a loving God who cares for the least, then recognise that you’re not going to be the most popular person in the community, because you’ll be challenging the status quo and upsetting the equilibrium. And no-one likes that.”

The upside is, of course, that this stuff about a loving God who cares for the oppressed is exciting stuff. It gives you a reason to live and believe, to act and to speak. It gives you a life which kowtowing to false powers does not. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

So, be realistic. Face what being Christian means head on and decide. Decide to side with a loving God who cares for victims or to collaborate in your own victimisation by pretending that everything’s okay. Decide to be excited about working against injustice or to live in resignation in a very imperfect world. Decide to speak and act in love and faith; or to act and speak in submission to other powers that will not set you free. But when you decide, know this—it is not the easy road that you choose when you choose freedom in God. It is a road that has consequences. Others won’t understand; won’t want to join you; may even work against you. You too may know humiliation because you proclaim God’s freedom, God’s justice, God’s love.

Know this too—that this life with consequences is so much more exciting, fulfilling, challenging than any easy road. This life with consequences is life in God. For what does it profit anyone to live an easy life without the consequences in contrast to a life that continually seeks the things of God and works to bring about God’s realm? If you do want to follow Christ, don’t try to save yourself (that’s done), rather enter into the freedom that Christ brings and enjoy proclaiming God’s will for the world in everything you say and do—even when there are consequences, consequences like the humiliation of a cross.