Mark 8:31-38

   Three times during his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, Jesus speaks of his impending death and resurrection, and each time, he pairs this announcement with a teaching about following him.  We read the first one here in Chapter 8, verses 31-38.  In the New Revised Standard Version, Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

   Scary, right?  Whenever we hit a scary or difficult teaching of Jesus, the best approach is to look at it in the context of his other teachings.  Jesus taught about nonviolence, a simple lifestyle, love of the poor, love of enemies, forgiveness, inclusivity, mercy, healing; he taught about not seeking status, power, privilege, and possessions.  These teachings tell us that human beings matter to God; that who you are matters to God.  So “deny yourself” and “take up your cross” can’t be read in a way that devalues human life and well-being.  In other words, these verses cannot be a request that people denigrate themselves in order to “bear their cross” and suffer, as this passage has sometimes been read.  Not all suffering is sacrificial or beneficial, and we should be deeply suspicious of any statements that justify abuse or oppression.  We need to read these words in the light of what Jesus called the two greatest commandments: that we are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. 

   That’s a good place to start in trying to understand this passage: To deny yourself and to take up your cross must in some way further these two great commandments.  To deny ourselves and to take up our crosses must help us, somehow, to choose the connection with God and each other that God chooses.  

   We get a hint from Jesus’ conversation with his disciples.  His disciples weren’t bombarded with 5000 advertising images every day as we are, telling them what they are supposed to look like and drive and wear and eat to be successful or cool or hip.  But they still imagine that the secret to life is strength and power, the 3 A’s of appearance, achievement, and affluence, rather than vulnerability and love.  So they interpret Jesus’ miraculous acts as demonstrations of power rather than manifestations of love.  Jesus explains to them that the predictable outcome of insisting on living in God’s kingdom rather than in Caesar’s, of living the way of love rather than the way of domination, will be his death.  The disciples, and Peter in particular, throw a fit.  Jesus needs to win!  Conquer!  Defeat!  Not be conquered and be killed.  Jesus turns on Peter and accuses him of being the mouthpiece of the dark side.  Peter’s way of thinking is the opposite of God’s thinking. 

   What Jesus is saying is that they, and we, need to go through some form of death – psychological, spiritual, relational, or physical – in order to loosen our ties to the way of winning and defeating, the way of the 3 A’s, the way of disconnection from God and each other. To “deny yourself” is to embrace the truth that we can’t live together peaceably, we can’t save our planet, we can’t thrive, without understanding that we’re all connected. 

   Karoline Lewis writes, “Lent is a denial of the self in the best way, the self that refuses community. The self that thinks it can survive on its own. The self that rejects the deep need of humanity: belonging.” This is a whole lot harder than giving up chocolate for 6 weeks.  Jesus doesn’t sugar coat this.  The images he uses are of sacrifice and death.  Becoming aware of whatever it is in us that gets in the way of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves, including loving ourselves, is hard work.  As Richard Rohr writes, “Before the truth ‘sets you free,’ it tends to make you miserable.”

   It is hard work but it is holy work and we do not do it alone.  God is all about resurrection.  The dailiness of the work fits my experience: every single day, daily dying to what does not give life, and daily rising to what does.  Jesus promises this is what will save us.  This is how we will find ourselves and each other. 

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.            

Resources:

Karoline Lewis, “A Different Kind of Denial,” February 22, 2015, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3542

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).

David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/lent-2-b/