Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
In order for the plan of God for the salvation of humankind to be realized the Son of Man had to suffer and die, giving his life as an offering for sin, so that we might have life.
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand (see Isaiah 53:10).
Jesus did not take up his own cross by accident, because the mission failed. It was always the plan of the Father. And yet, even he, the God man, found it necessary to steel himself for this by his prayer to the Father in the garden of Gethsemane. To take up his cross was not easy or trivial simply because of his divine nature. Because of that it was possible, not easy. Jesus had no excess of worldly desire drawing him to riches or other vices. But there were many natural goods which he had to relinquish in order to give his life for us. Had he chosen to prefer his own life in the world he would not have saved our lives.
Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
We are not called simply to sit and admire what Jesus did for us on the cross. We are called rather to come after Jesus and to become like him. As Jesus' life was constant obedience to the Father and unwavering love of neighbor so too should our lives become. It is his cross that makes it possible for us to take up our own cross, to die to selfish desire, and to live for God and for others.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
When we hear about taking up our cross we are immediately tempted to investigate every possible alternative. How can we achieve meaning and fulfillment without the need to die to self? The world offers many deceptive promises in this regard but "the present form of this world is passing away" (see First Corinthians 7:31). We must not live our lives for the sake of those things that are temporary. And this means letting go of our grasp on anything to which we are clinging too tightly. If we want to live forever we must be willing to leave the sinking ship.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?
Jesus does not tell us to die to self as an end in itself as though the negation of the world was the end of the story. Rather, he tells us that we must die to that which is lesser for the sake of the greater and the perfect. Jesus himself embraced the cross, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the joy set before him. The author of Hebrews presents this as an example for all of us to follow, writing that we should look "to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (see Hebrews 12:2).
The call to take up our cross and to call of Moses to choose life are fundamentally the same call. The call to life, in our fallen world, necessarily goes by way of the cross. But life, true life, better than anything the world could ever promise is nevertheless the goal.
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