Wednesday 06 June 2018

Psalm: Psalm 74:1-12

Background

What is the mark of a true follower of Christ? Is it someone who can properly identify him or the person who gets on with the business of walking out a daily pilgrimage of faith?

In a quiet moment, Luke’s Gospel appears to have Jesus ask in an almost disinterested way if the disciples have been listening to the gossip about him: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” (v. 18). Could he be John the Baptist come back to life, or the great hero Elijah? Was it possible, the crowds were wondering, that another prophet was back among them?

Peter piped up that he has the answer: they are praying alongside ‘the Messiah of God’ (v. 20).

You might expect Jesus to have congratulated them for getting it right, but instead he begins to talk about suffering, rejection and his ultimate Passion. It’s as if the revelation of who he is unlocks the ability for the disciples to now appreciate what is coming their way.

More than that, they have to be confronted by the reality of discipleship. Jesus says: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (vv. 23-24).

Discipleship isn’t simply about knowing that Jesus is Lord and taking up the cross isn’t about putting up with some difficult, or even very tough, things in your life. Too often we trot out the phrase “It’s a cross I have to bear” when we talk about an inconvenience.

Jesus was calling the disciples, and us, to be prepared to die daily to their own desires in order to put God and the kingdom first: even at the cost of their own lives – just as he would give up his life for the whole world.

To Ponder

• How does the Church in the West take up its cross daily?
• Have we cheapened the idea of taking up our cross? If so, how? And what might we do to re-address this?
• How do we renew the idea of daily discipleship?