Tuesdays with Mark (8:31-9:1)

This is one of the most important passages in Mark’s gospel. In the previous section (see last week), Jesus has been traveling with his disciples and he asks them who people say that he is. After giving him several answers, Jesus pointedly asks them who they say that he is. Peter says what they have been thinking for some time: “You are the Christ.” And yes, Peter is right—Jesus is indeed the “anointed” one. When Jesus next tells them what it will mean for him to be the Christ—that he must suffer, be rejected, and die—Peter rebukes him because what Jesus is describing doesn’t make any sense to him. The Christ, for Peter, is called to lead and conquer, not suffer and die.
That is the scene that we are in the middle of right now. Jesus next proceeds to move from telling them what being the Christ will mean for him to telling them what it will mean for them: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” We spent the rest of the hour this morning dealing with this one sentence. What does it mean?
If we want to become a follower of Jesus, a disciple of Jesus, then we must deny our egos, our plans, our control, out desire to be in charge, our notions of perfection. If we hold onto any of these we cannot follow Jesus. I asked the fellows this morning if any of them wrestled with this piece of scripture and they all had the good sense and honesty to raise their hands. We all struggle with denying ourselves.
“Take up their cross…” Jesus then says. By picking up your cross Jesus is not talking about the daily grievances or challenges that we all have. He is not talking about the in-laws coming for a visit. He is not talking about putting up with a boss that tries your patience. By taking up your cross Jesus is talking about two things. First, we must, if we are to follow him, be willing to die for him—die to self, die to control, die to being judgmental, die to playing God. Second, Jesus is talking about picking up our cross to do redemptive work, just like he did when he picked up his own cross. I asked the fellows this morning what redemptive work looks like and they said, “rescue,” and “reconciliation,” and “forgiveness,” and “love.” Jesus didn’t go to the cross to simply suffer for sufferings sake. He was not a masochist. He suffered for a reason, he picked up his cross for a reason, and that was to make us right with God, with each other, and with ourselves. In all the places that sin infects and separates, Jesus came to bring his sacrificial and redemptive blood. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross he is asking us to join him in redemptive work, rescue work, reconciling work.
One of the themes that kept coming up this morning was that the men talked about having to come to terms with their own imperfections. They seemed reluctant to do so, but there they were—their imperfections and mistakes and messes—and there was nothing else to do but to admit them and accept them. I asked them to think about their imperfections in another way. “O happy sin. O happy fault.” I quoted a medieval mystic (Dame Julian) who said the above. Why “happy” sin? Why “happy” fault? Without our flawed humanity, our sins and imperfections and messes, we would never really turn to God and admit our need for God. Without coming to our knees we will never really know grace. It is when we have hit the wall, made a hash of things, wondered what our life is all about, faced into our own culpability, that we give room in our hearts for the grace of God to touch us and forgive us and heal us. Until then we are all too likely to play God. At this moment a man got up and just started to cry—cry because he had received grace in that group; cry because he felt God’s healing and forgiving presence. He thanked the others with tears rolling down his cheeks. All we could then do—I felt—was to sing the first verse of “Amazing Grace.”
I commend this one sentence to your own reflections and prayers. It is at the very heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.