The man
Take Up Your Cross
Jesus never hid the cost.
If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Mark 8:34-38 · Luke 9:23-26 · Oxford Classical Dictionary, Crucifixion
The scene
We have had two thousand years to get used to the cross.
They hadn't.
The people listening to Jesus knew it as an instrument of execution. Rome made condemned people carry the crossbeam towards the place where they would die.
He had just told his disciples that he would suffer, be killed and rise again.
And Jesus chose the cross to describe following him.
He called the crowd together with his disciples:
"If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."Mark 8:34
Deny yourself.
You aren't being told to hate yourself. You're being told that your life no longer belongs under your own authority. It belongs under his.
Then he says:
"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, the same will save it."Luke 9:24
"For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?"Mark 8:36
The point
Deny yourself. Take up your cross.
Sit with this
Follow me.