Luke 9:23-27--Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

Luke 9:23-27
English Standard Version

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

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Jesus has talked fed the 5,000 and he has huge crowds following Him.  He's had a private conversation with His disciples about His identity and keeping His identity as the Son of God secret during this time.  Now Jesus is going to turn back to all those crowds who are following Him because they want to get something from Him and tells them a message they don't want to hear--following me is going to cost you everything, even to the point of waking up every day ready to die on a cross if necessary.

Those were words the people of that day would understand.  The Romans had perfected the torture, brutality and shaming surrounding the crucifixion.  They were beaten and whipped within an inch of death, but were kept just healthy enough for them to put on a good show for the crowds as this what what Rome did to those that committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the Roman empire.  Jesus was telling them that being a follower of Him would mean that they would naturally become the enemy of the Roman empire and that they would be subject to death.  This is not simply teaching a principle by hyperbole like we might want to think it is.  Jesus is being quite literal here that if they choose Him, they are probably choosing a life of pain, suffer, torture, shaming, and death as far as this world is concerned.  Humiliation and agony don't even start to describe what crucifixion was like, so we came up with a brand new word--excruciating, which literally means "out of the cross"

As if that wasn't bad enough, Jesus confronted the idea that those who were wealthy had it all together and were in right standing with God, since God didn't bless the unrighteous.  Jesus says that there is a cost-benefits analysis that needs to take place.  "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?"  Jesus is saying that if you live for everything this life has to offer and that's all that you live for, you chose poorly, because there is an eternity of life that comes after this and you cannot live for yourself and this world in this life and expect to reap eternal life in the kingdom of God.  That's not the type of person that God wants as citizens of His kingdom, and God as the King of His Kingdom gets to make the rules regarding naturalization and immigration to HIs Kingdom.  God tells us there is only one way to enter through the one gate--the one port of entry.  There is no other way.  In John 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father except through Me."  To chose to follow Jesus, we must value Jesus as the only thing worth holding onto and be willing to let go of everything else--money, family, education, career, popularity, and anything else this world tells us is worth living and dying for.

The answer to Jesus' question is clear, it profits such a man nothing if he is the richest man in the world, for the wealth of this world cannot buy bribe the Righteous Judge of Heaven who is going to verify our immigration status at the gates of the kingdom of God and only those who are citizens of His kingdom will be allowed entry.  Those who are citizens of another kingdom--the kingdom of this destination they have chosen for themselves where it will make the suffering of crucifixion look like child's play.

So, the choice is clear, do we live for this world and this life now ashamed of Jesus getting all the "good" things this life has to offer and ending up in eternal punishment or do we count the cost and give up all the things this world calls good for the best that God has to offer us in the person of His own Son and give up some temporary gratification in exchange for eternal and abundant life.  It's really a no-brainer if you believe Jesus about the consequences of our choices.  This is not the only place where Jesus will talk about this either and Luke is going to have a particular emphasis in His gospel about those seeking after wealth not being fit for the kingdom of God.  We've already seen that in Luke's version of the Beatitudes, and we will see it in Luke 16:19-31 and many other parables where Jesus pits the wealthy and apparently righteous against those who have nothing other than the righteousness that has been imparted to them by Christ (see the parable of The Lost Son for instance in Luke 15:11-32).  This is a main topic for Luke and we even saw this in the temptation of Jesus when He faced this very temptation for He was tempted to gain the whole world but "lose His soul" by worshiping the devil to get what He wanted without having to endue the cross.

The last verse of this passage has confused some people.  The listeners at that time probably assumed this meant that some of the followers of Jesus would never taste death before He returned for them, but they needed to be willing to die every day.  That is not what He said though.  He said that some of them would not taste death until they get to see the kingdom of God.  God was going to give prophetic visions to some of them standing there so that they would see what He had in the future for those that were in Christ as well as for those that were outside of Christ.  We know specifically that this happened with John in the book of Revelation.  Was John the only one that Jesus was talking about here?  Probably not.  The plural nature of Jesus' statement saying "some" and not simply "one" or "at least one" probably indicates that Jesus meant that more than one person would see the future kingdom before they died (though all who are His disciples are "absent from the body" are "present with the Lord").