God became fully human in order that humans could become fully men and women bearing His image - the Imago Dei. Christ now calls and enables all those who follow him to live responsibly in the concrete realities of life in the here and now. As we ponder this very present reality, we must ask yet another question: Where do we hear this call from God?
The call to live such a life comes to us in the words of Jesus when he said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). It is a call to live wholly following after him. It is a call to live a submitted life as we deny ourselves; to live a singular life as we take up his cross daily; and to live a sacrificed life as we follow him on the road that leads to death upon that cross. Christ calls the disciple to deny himself. We deny ourselves by submitting to Christ and his Word.
We subject ourselves to his examining eye. We pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and see if there be any evil way in me.” God must search us. We cannot search ourselves. We cannot examine ourselves. We would too easily find excuses and justifications for our choices.
Only by examining ourselves by his Word and as the Spirit of God wields its discriminating blade, sharper than any two-edged sword as it discerns the thoughts and intents of our hearts, (Hebrews 4:12), will we begin to live the submitted life – a life of denial to self. Through living a submitted life we begin wholly following.
Christ calls the disciple to take us his cross. We take up our cross by recognizing that the cross must mean to us what it meant to Christ. It is an instrument of death, indeed our place of death, but not merely a death to our self-centered, self-focused life, but a death of the follower for others. The cross was the fulfillment of Christ’s work on earth -- the work that the Father had given him to do – the giving up of his life for others.
The cross was the sign-post that marked the way that Christ walked. It displayed his willingness to do the will of his Father. So the cross that we take up is for us the singular emblem of the one thing that the follower of Christ desires, and that is: to do the will of God. Living this singular life takes us to the core of wholly following.
Christ calls the disciple to follow him. When a person instructs you to follow, he knows the path that must be taken. So, the question must be asked: where was Jesus going when he issued this call? The answer is found in the preceding verse: "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised." (Luke 9:22) Christ knew the destiny that he had been born to fulfill.
With that knowledge, he calls upon his disciples to follow him on that journey to Jerusalem
The thing that got me here is the point that Christ knew where he was going. He was going to carry the burdens and sins of the world. We, following him, then, are called to do the same. But how seldom do Christians see it as their job to not merely see the sins of the world but to, in fact, carry those sins on their shoulders. We are eager to take that first step and recognize the sin of the world but not so eager to carry those sins as our own. And when we are willing to take that second step we begin to see things differently. We are able to move beyond the sin, that thing that makes them the 'other'-to borrow from Miroslav Volf-and begin to identify them as fellow creation in need of redemption and embrace.
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