Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
Luke 9:23–25 NIV
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?”
CONSIDER
Back in the late 1900s when I was a youth pastor for the first time—because I think I shared with you I am now enjoying my second coming as a youth pastor—I created a special award for extraordinary volunteers who worked with our students. I called them the Luke 9:23 Awards.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."
You've heard the saying, "Find someone doing something right and celebrate it." Well, this was that. When I noticed someone going extra miles to love on our kids I celebrated it. In doing so I proved another saying I had heard, "You get more of what you celebrate."
But what does it mean to take up one's cross? I used to think it meant do things you didn't really want to do while gritting your teeth and smiling. After all, it says "deny yourself," right? In other words, I thought of it through a behavioral lens. Don't be selfish. And when we hear "don't" before just about anything, it essentially means, "Don't miss." This is one of the many things I love so much about Jesus. He actually tells us what we are aiming at and how to keep our eye on the ball.
Take up your cross. But what does this mean? He's not asking for a performance.
Maybe we should ask this question, "What is the cross?"
The cross is the sign, symbol, and real place where Jesus unconditionally and unreservedly gave himself to his Father for the sake the world. The cross is the divine reality of self-giving love. In this light, there is only ultimately one way to deny oneself. It is to give oneself away. It follows, then, that to take up our cross is to give oneself unconditionally and unreservedly to Jesus. And to give oneself to Jesus is to deny oneself. It's why the first line of John Wesley's celebrated Covenant Prayer says, "I am no longer my own, but thine." The minute we give ourselves to Jesus is the minute we give up our rights to ourselves.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."
Then there's the little word tucked in between "cross" and "follow." It's one of our favorite words. The word is daily—as in today!
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."
Here's my working translation of what responding to this invitation looks like—every single day.
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
PRAY
I think we just prayed it.
