Theologia Crucis

Theologia Crucis February 23, 2012

The Cost of Being a Disciple

²⁵ Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶ "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple.

William Barclay talks on this matter in his commentary simply titled “The Gospel of Luke.” On page 233 Barclay says, “When Jesus tells us to hate our nearest and dearest, He does not mean that literally. He means that no love in life can compare with the love we must bear to Him.” Barclay continues on and says that “there are two suggestive truths with this passage. (1) it is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple.” He continues by saying, “It is one of the supreme handicaps of the Church that in it there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.” (2) It is the Christian’s first duty to count the cost of following Christ.” In the Church of Scotland, the introduction to marriage ceremony is performed and the minister says this, “Marriage is not to be entered upon lightly or unadvisedly, but thoughtfully, reverently, and in the fear of God.” A man and a woman must count the cost in the same way we should count our cost in our relationship with Christ. Barclay completes his thought on this passage and he says, “If we are daunted by the high demands of Christ let us remember that we are not left to fulfill them alone. He who called us to the steep road will walk with us every step of the way and be there at the end to meet us.” You know, when I looked at this passage when I was a bit younger I thought that Christ must have been an arrogant tyrant that just wanted everyone to focus on Him and worship Him. I mean come on, hating my mother and father? It was only until I was called to ministry and I was asked to leave the comfort of my home in Holland, Ohio with my $32.00 an hour job to follow the path of Christ that I really began to understand. See my dad and I were at odds at the time. I knew that if I walked away from my job, that my dad had desired me to be at for so long, that he would surely disown me this time. However on that hot summer day that I received that phone call I somehow knew that everything was going to be ok. God had called me, “Tim, don’t worry about what your mom and dad will think. I have something far better for you.” From that moment on it wasn’t a matter of hating my mother or father. It was a matter of letting go of all insecurities of what my parents would think. Letting go of all worry and all hesitation to what my parents would be thinking, and place all of that concern and heaviness on my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and trusting Him alone. See, it wasn’t hate at all; it was a matter of trust. It was matter that I was worried about what their opinion would be of me. It wasn’t about hating my parents at all, I was growing up into the man that Christ wanted me to be and I was making a mature decision to follow the path that He has laid for my life. We know this because Christ adds at the end of verse 26, “Yes even his own life…” How is it possible to hate our own lives? Well it is not possible at all, but it is possible to put aside our own desires and to shed all of our own cares and worries about ourselves and to let Jesus Christ reign completely over every aspect of our lives. It isn’t about hate; I feel that Christ used the most extreme of circumstances to get us to realize the importance of our relationships with Him. I believe that this goes a lot deeper than what we really think that it goes. See because when Christ says, “Yes even his own life…” He uses an interesting Greek word for ‘life’ and that is psyche. The definition of this Greek word used in this text is “the soul as the vital principle.” So to my understanding, Jesus isn’t just asking us to hate our own lives, He is saying that we must despise the inner most parts of our souls. Again, putting aside the descriptive words “hate” and “despise” and understanding that He wants for you to understand that He wants control of every last ounce of your life. He wants for you to desire Him in the deepest parts of your soul. To love Him more than you love even your own parents, or your own children. Unconditional love.

²⁷ And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:27

Right before Jesus offers us a parable about the cost of being a disciple He says maybe one of the most popular bible verses that people quote constantly, “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Stunning words from Jesus, simple yet very powerful. So after a little bit of research on the Roman cross, it really puts this idea of “carrying your cross” into prospective. Wikipedia states that the average Roman cross weighed well over 300 pounds. Now, depending on which scholar you study, Christ may have carried the whole cross to His death or He may have carried just the top beam used to support the arms and hands. Now if that is the case, this beam weighed roughly 75-150 pounds. Either way, the journey that Jesus was forced to take with His “cross” was a painful one. I would gather from the extreme fashion that Jesus encourages us to live that He is speaking of carrying the whole weight of the cross. Now, again I realize that this is simply a metaphor for how we should live our lives, but if we take the actual example of what Christ was speaking of and paint a picture with it, and then it makes it easier for us to understand.

Further investigation of this subject finds some very good information. The Greek word for ‘cross’ is stauros and has two very interesting definitions that I feel pertain to Christ’s main point. (1) Refers to the cross as “an instrument of the most dreadful and agonizing torture.” Commonly Romans would punish Christians with crucifixion; first they were scourged and then made to bear their own cross to the place of execution. Now to touch on this point first, I believe that Christ is telling us that if we bear the weight of our own cross daily, it will at times be absolute torture. The gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 21 says this, “21 the people of the world will persecute you because you belong to me, for they don't know God who sent me.” (The Living Bible)

Jesus very much understood that there would be a price to following His name and claiming His will for your life. He knew that it would be so difficult that He compared it to His own miserable death on a cross. “The Christian who called his noisy neighbors the "cross" he had to bear certainly did not understand the meaning of dying to self.”—Bible Exposition Commentary - New Testament. Jesus followed His point with three parables about ‘counting the cost’ of your faith.

(2) The ‘cross’ denotes the whole passion of Christ and the merit of His sufferings and death. Ephesians 2:14-16 supports this thought.

“¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

Verse 14 and 15 define Christ as our ‘peace’ and then verse 16 tells how Christ became our peace, through death and destruction of hostility on the cross. You see, the cross not only represents a large wooden ‘T’ used to execute humans, it is also a metaphor for a way of life. So not only is it our responsibility to bear the weight of the ridicule and hostility of following Jesus Christ, it should very well become a way of life and the constant focal point of our lives.