Daily Butter: Death Sentence

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (8/24/12):

 

Then He said to them all, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

(Luke 9:23 HCSB)

 

While centuries later and from a different cultural context, I know the mandate to “take up his cross” has lost the bite. Since a “cross” has become a symbol of faith in our culture rather than the instrument of public torture and death, we tend to relate more with the “deny himself” command. Unfortunately, “the cross that I must bear” has come into the vernacular as just an unwelcome yet unavoidable burden, while the “dead man walking” image that it had in that day truly captured the ultimate extent of denying self that Christ not only taught but epitomized. This “death march” is, as Christ warned, needed daily as we are in the balance between the “I no longer live….” and “the life I now live…” (Gal 2:19-20). As I write this, I must echo Paul: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on” (Phil 3:12 NIV).

 

- Andy Jentes