Luke 9:23-25

     Jesus just got finished telling his disciples that he was not going to be a conquering hero, then he makes it clear that being a follower of his wasn’t going to be any picnic either. If they wanted to go with him, they would have to pick up their cross daily. Making the saving of their lives a priority will be useless. Those who lose their lives for his sake will save it.
     Christians have grown used to the idea that they are called to “pick up their cross daily.” The subject is probably taken lightly, certainly the “cross” becomes to modern followers whatever little inconvenience or giving they do. Or some may suffer an illness or accident or problem and say that after all this is a cross they’ll have to bear. And perhaps it is, but possibly not the kind of cross Jesus was talking about.
     When Jesus faced his cross, he had a choice. He could have run away. He could have chosen a ministry that would not bring him into conflict with the dangerous elite. He could have had his followers fight on his behalf. He could have used his remarkable powers to circumvent the cross. But he didn’t. He may have prayed and asked God to let him skip this death, but when he believed it was God’s will for him to proceed, that’s what he did.
     The cross was a form of execution that the Romans adopted from the Persians. It was intended as cruel and unusual punishment – also very public.
     Crucifixion hung a man by the arms, stretching the chest muscles which kept the man from being able to breathe properly. Lack of oxygen caused lactic acid to build up in the muscles causing severe and painful cramps. You know how painful those muscle cramps must have been to know that a man would raise himself up on the nails through his feet in order to get some decent breaths of air. But he couldn't take the pain in his feet very long, so his body would sag and the suffocation and the muscle cramps started again. Hours, sometimes days passed with this terrible alternating torture between the breath and the muscle pains and the agony in the feet. Finally, he grew too weak to extend his life by raising himself up and he would die. If the Romans wanted to hasten death, they broke the man's legs.
     It took Jesus fewer hours to die because of what he had already endured—the thirty-nine lashes. Forty lashes was considered a death sentence. Jesus was already in severely weakened condition when he was placed upon the cross. It still took six hours of incredible agony.
     The cross for modern Christians has become a symbol, something that is decorated into a beautiful form. It is hard to estimate what his words sounded like to those who first heard him say they must pick up the cross in order to follow. Even the noose or electric chair, relatively clean and no longer public, would not have the same impact today.
     The disciples showed little sign that they actually believed Jesus would suffer and die—until he was placed on the cross. After the crucifixion there could have been little doubt that being his follower could involve a cross, or something else that was humiliating, painful, unpleasant, devastating, or fatal. We have mostly traditions about what happened to the disciples. Only young John, by those traditions, seemed to have died an old man. An early follower, Stephen, would be stoned to death. Holding the cloaks of those doing the stoning was Paul, (also known as Saul). When he became a Christian later in his life, he would be lashed, imprisoned, and otherwise abused. He also suffered from some form of physical or emotional ailment; he didn’t seem to regard that as something suffered on behalf of Jesus, but simply as a thorn in the flesh.

What might constitute a cross in the life of a modern Christian?

Have you found a cross you had to pick up in being a disciple?