Following Jesus to the Cross

As Christians throughout the world prepare to observe Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday, we are reminded in the Scriptures that well before the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem Jesus Christ began to teach the disciples “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk. 8:31).^[1]

Jesus identifies as the “Son of Man,” the one to be enthroned in heaven who triumphs over the grotesque mutant beastly kingdoms that rise and fall upon the earth as Daniel foretold (Dan. 7:1-28). But Isaiah foresaw the Messiah being Suffering Servant (Isa. 52:13-53:1). The enthronement comes through the suffering (Phil. 2:5-11). Instead of gathering an army of revolutionaries to wage holy war in the building of a theocratic empire, Messiah triumphs through the way of the cross. It is through his death and resurrection the powers of darkness are defeated and those captive in sin are set free (Col. 2:13-15; 1 Jn. 3:8; 1 Pet. 2:24).). Christ dies on behalf of the sinner and the sinner is washed in the blood of the Lamb (Rom. 3:21-26; 5:1-11).

Not everyone gets what Jesus taught about His vocation as the Messiah. Despite having declared Jesus to be the Messiah, Peter rebukes the Lord and says, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matt. 16:22). The ole fisherman simply was unable to conceive of a messiah that suffered and died. But the very notion was counter to God’s vocation for the Messiah and satanic in essence. Jesus thus says, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Mk. 8:33).

Peter had to abandon his own faulty presuppositions about a messiah and receive the Messiah on Messiah’s own terms. Yet, the same lesson applies to everyone else. So, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk. 8:34).

Nowadays, we have a penchant to imagine messiahs according to our own predilections. It is like there is a sort of “a perverse Jesus contest” happening wherein the winner is the one who comes up with the “most bizarre portrait” of the Christ. Christian historian Paul Maier explains how this contest is played:

First, you read the New Testament Gospels and draw a general sketch of Jesus. Then, distort that sketch as much as you please, add clashing colors, paint in a bizarre background, and if the surviving Christ resembles anything in the Gospels, you lose. But if you come up with a radically different — above all, sensational —portrait of Jesus, you win. The prizes are maximum coverage in the media, frowns from the faithful, and acclaim from everyone else.^[2]

One winning portrait in this contest makes Jesus a revolutionary zealot from ancient Palestine who sought to raise an army to oust the Roman occupiers. Another makes Jesus was a Jewish cynic who dressed like a “hippie” and rejected the “yuppie” social values of Caesar. A third makes Jesus into a multi-millionaire able to live in a mansion, drive a Roll-Royce and wear a Rolex for knowing the secret to using the word of faith to speak into existence perfect health and unlimited wealth. A fourth makes Jesus into the central figure in a new dying and rising savior myth meant to displace the old dying and rising savior myths of past establishments (e.g., Adonis, Attis and Osiris). Pick any of these and you have a winner in this perverse Jesus contest. But the sure loser is anyone who declares Jesus to be the long-awaited Messiah foreseen by the Old Testament prophets who died upon the cross and rose again the third day.^[3]

Reconstructing Jesus according to personal whims is tempting. Playing the perverse Jesus contest, one can take deadly vices — pride, vainglory, anger, lust, envy, greed, gluttony and acedia (being lazy, slothful and detached) —and invent a messiah who considers them to be virtues. One can invent a messiah that allows devotes to satisfy their carnal passions even to the extent of exchanging the natural use of the physical body for something unnatural, the defilement of the sexual reproductive organs in particular. Moreover, one can invent a messiah who calls for wars and racism to be done in his, her or its name.

All this is symptomatic of embracing and treasuring the “cheap grace” criticized by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer wrote, “Cheap grace means justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.”^[4]

Christ bids me to follow Him. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Rather than redefining Jesus to be my cosmic “yes” man who exist only to approve of my whims, I must deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Christ. Jesus is not the one to be spiritually transformed into my likeness. I am the one who needs to be transformation into the likeness of Christ. The true Jesus Christ is the one who provides the divine grace most needed by all of us. It is through Christ’s death and resurrection that sin is atoned, the powers of darkness are defeated, and the hope for everlasting life is received.

— WGN

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[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), used throughout.

[2] Paul Maier, The Genuine Jesus: Fresh Evidence from History and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2021), 21.

[3] For discussion on the zealot and cynic portraits of Jesus, cf., Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006). For discussion on the millionaire Jesus, cf. Hank Hanegraaff, Christianity in Crisis 21^st Century (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009).For discussion on Jesus being a modified copy of the dying and rising god myths in ancient paganism, cf. Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thoughts? (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1992, 2003).

[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: McMillian Publishing Co. Inc., 1963), 46.