Matthew 16
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
I was once asked to speak at an associational outreach event at a lake picnic area in Georgia a number of years ago. There were a few of us who spoke and then some folks sang and then some folks shared their testimonies. The people enjoying the lake and picnic area were invited to join us.
One of the speakers was a guy who was a bit older than me. He was a solid guy, a strong guy with big hands. He told his story: how he came to know Jesus and the difference that Jesus had made in his life. At a certain point in his story, he took up a large nail and what looked like a 2×4 board. He began to talk about the cross, about the crucifixion of Jesus. He talked about how Jesus was nailed to a cross of wood, much like the wood that he held in his hand. He held up the large nail and talked about how the nails were driven into the hands and feet of Jesus.
At a certain point, he called two men forward and asked them to hold the board. He told them to brace themselves and to hold the board firmly and outright before them. He then continued to talk about the horror of the crucifixion and how Jesus was nailed to that cross. The two men stood before him, holding the 2×4 out. He, the speaker, held the nail.
He built up to a crescendo and proclaimed, “They took our Savior, and put Him on the cross, and drove nails into His hands! They nailed Jesus to the cross!” And then, he took his hand, the hand with the nail in it, and reared it back, and then brought it forward, slamming it into the board and, to our amazement, driving the nail all the way into the board with his hand until the head of the nail was flush with the board.
In one fast, strong, powerful moment, that man drove a nail through the board with his hand!
He then called those watching to remember the pain that Jesus felt and to give their lives to Jesus!
It was all quite moving and powerfully dramatic. I saw him do that with a nail and a board once again at another event sometime after that.
That was what he would do. That was his great moment of invitation to audiences. He would drive nails through boards with his bare hands. He must have done it countless times.
Some years later I was talking with a friend of mine from that area. I mentioned that story. She remembered the man well. She knows him. She told me that, at one speaking event, he went to do the trick with the nail and the board. Two guys held the board out before them. He reared back his hand with the nail in it. He brought his hand slamming down on the board. But something happened. Maybe the nail hit a knot. Maybe it was something else. Regardless, when he brought his hand down on the board, the nail did not go forward through the board. Instead, the tip of the nail stopped fast on the board and the back of the nail was driven up into and through the man’s hand.
Church, sooner or later, the cross must become real to us. The spectacle of it must become a living reality for us. What happened to that gentleman physically, needs to happen to all of us spiritually! The cross must become real to us.
In Matthew 16, Jesus talked about following His way. What He said was startling:
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Let us consider the place of the cross in walking The Jesus Way.
Taking up the cross is at the heart of The Jesus Way.
We have challenged each other to walk The Jesus Way: to face every situation, every circumstance, every relationship, and everything happening within us with this one question in mind: “What is The Jesus Way in this situation?” And then to walk that way through the power of the Holy Spirit!
If we are to walk The Jesus Way, we must understand The Jesus Way. And when we seek to understand it through turning to scripture, we understand that the cross is at the very heart of The Jesus Way. We know this because of one specific word in Matthew 16, when Jesus speaks of the cross.
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
Did you catch the one word? Here it is: must. “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer…and be killed…and on the third day be raised.”
The cross was what Jesus came to do. He came to take the cross: to suffer, to die, and to rise again!
We cannot understand The Jesus Way without the cross and the empty tomb! This path simply is His way!
In 1906, Jessie Pounds captured the necessity of the way of the cross powerfully in the hymn, “The Way of the Cross Leads Home.” One historian writes:
This hymn could have been inspired by a popular sermon illustration circulating during those days:
The geographical heart of London is Charing Cross, which is referred to locally simply as “the Cross”. A London police officer came upon a lost child who was unable to tell him where he lived. Finally, amid sobs and tears, the child simply said, “If you will take me to the Cross, I think I can find my way home from there.”
I must needs go home by the way of the cross,
There’s no other way but this;
I shall ne’er get sight of the Gates of Light,
If the way of the cross I miss.
The way of the cross leads home,
The way of the cross leads home;
It is sweet to know, as I onward go,
The way of the cross leads home.
I must needs go on in the blood-sprinkled way,
The path that the Savior trod,
If I ever climb to the heights sublime,
Where the soul is at home with God.
Then I bid farewell to the way of the world,
To walk in it nevermore;
For my Lord says, “Come,” and I seek my home,
Where He waits at the open door.[1]
If Jesus “must” walk this way, and we are to walk His way, then we must be willing to take up the cross! The cross is at the heart of The Jesus Way.
We naturally recoil at the idea of taking up the cross.
The cross is at the heart of The Jesus Way, yet we naturally recoil at the cross. The verses that follow Jesus’ announcement of the “must-ness” of the cross are indicative of the reaction we all have instinctively to the cross.
22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Peter says this, but Peter also represents the natural thoughts of man concerning the cross. We recoil at the cross. Jesus’ rebuke is most telling: “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Indeed, this is how men think!
But Peter thought he was being a good follower of Jesus when he rebuked Jesus concerning the cross.
It could be argued and demonstrated that, for two millennia now, many who claim to follow Jesus are trying to do so without the cross at the center. To be sure, we like the cross for what it gains us (life, now and eternal), but we do not like the idea of the cross as a way. We recoil at this.
Michael Wilkinson writes of the early-16th century Anabaptist Leonhard Schiemer that Schiemer condemned the Bible teachers of his day because they fled the cross. Wilkinson writes that Schiemer:
asserts that avoiding the cross begins with the teachers, or “Scripture experts.” These teachers love their lives too much, so they judge according to the world and teach what people want to hear; thus, “they teach and live how they please in order only to flee from the cross.” As a result, they have attempted to learn about faith apart from the cross. Instead of learning from the cross, “They gladly wish to learn the truth from the advanced schools and learn with words.” As a result, the “Scripture experts” know nothing of grace because they have avoided the cross.
Schiemer brilliantly lays out the numerous devastating effects of avoiding the cross:
- Avoiding the cross leads us to love our lives overmuch.
- Avoiding the cross leads us to be worldly in our thinking.
- Avoiding the cross leads us to be worldly in our teaching.
- Avoiding the cross distorts the faith we profess to possess.
- Avoiding the cross leads us to elevate other teaching tools above the cross of Jesus.[2]
Our aversion to the cross must be overcome. Cross-less Christianity is a nefarious distortion that reduces Jesus to a kind of heavenly ATM machine and allows us the comfort of getting to “go to heaven” without the calling of actually following Jesus’ way.
Taking up the cross means death to self, radical obedience, and complete trust in the deliverance of God.
Immediately after Jesus’ rebukes Peter, He pivots and says something even more flabbergasting. We return to Matthew 16.
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
Watch the progression of our text:
- Jesus: “I must go to the cross.” (v.21)
- Peter: “No, you must never go to the cross!” (v.22–23)
- Jesus: “All who follow me must take the cross.” (v.24–26)
What can this mean? In what sense do we, as Jesus’ followers, take up our crosses?
One thing we can rule out is the idea that we take up the cross in the exact same way as Jesus leading to the exact same results. Meaning, there is a uniqueness in what Jesus did on the cross that we can never duplicate. Christ alone can:
- take up the cross as the spotless, sinless lamb of God;
- take up the cross as a substitutionary atonement for sinners;
- take up the cross as an atoning, satisfying sacrifice.
No, there is a sense in which Jesus and Jesus alone can take up the cross: as the payment for the sins of the world. We cannot do that! Only Jesus can do that.
So, what does He mean when He tells us to “deny” ourselves and “take up [our] cross”?
It would be most helpful here to see the cross as the ultimate statement and symbol of death to self, radical obedience, and complete trust in the deliverance of God. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross, this is what he is calling us to: death to self, radical obedience, and complete trust in the deliverance of God.
To walk The Jesus Way is to take the cross, which means to lay down your life in repentance and faith, give yourself radically to the Father, and trust that he will deliver you. This is where resurrection comes in. In our text, we read:
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
Those last words—“and on the third day be raised again”—are so crucial. The Christian life is not only the way of the cross. It is the way of the cross and the empty tomb. The Lord will deliver His children. If we are willing to die to self and embrace Christ, we will live!
Paul put this so beautifully in Romans 6:
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
To take the cross, then, is to receive the empty tomb. To die with Christ, is to live with Christ.
Brothers and sisters: Do not fear to take the cross! This is The Jesus Way! Lay yourselves down before the crucified Christ and trust in the deliverance of God. Repent and believe! Lay down your old life! Fall at the foot of the cross! Embrace it and take it up! He will raise you up now and forevermore!
In Makoto Fujimura’s beautiful and powerful book, Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering, he writes of the persecution of the Japanese Church and of the powerful monument on Martyrs Hill in Nagasaki that memorializes them.
On a bright morning in December 2002…I…stood in front of twenty-six figures lined up as a horizontal wing of a bronze cross marvelously crafted by sculptor Yasutake Funakoshi. The cross is outdoors on Martyrs Hill; Nagasaki is to one side, and the ocean is at the other. My eyes went almost immediately to the two shortest figures, one slightly higher than the other. The two short crosses belonged to Saint Ibaraki and Saint Anthony, twelve-year-old and thirteen-year-old believers.
Twenty-six men and three children were paraded some 480 miles from Kyoto to this hill to be crucified. It was the magistrates’ logic that it would embarrass them to be taunted throughout their journey. Some bled as they walked; their ears or noses had been cut off in Kyoto. On a busy road in Kyoto today— right by a hospital, one of the first that was established in Kyoto by Christian missionaries— there is a stone that marks where the march began.
The story of their arrival at their destination is one of a remarkable display of faith. When they arrived at the hill in Nagasaki, crosses were already lined up. As the story goes, one of the two boys said, “Show me my cross.” Then the other echoed, “Show me mine.”[3]
Show me my cross.
Show me mine.
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
This is The Jesus Way.
[1] https://hymnpod.com/2009/04/02/the-way-of-the-cross-leads-home/
[2] Wilkinson, Michael D. “Suffering the Cross: The Life, Theology, and Significance of Leonhard Schiemer.” The Anabaptists and Contemporary Baptists: Restoring New Testament Christianity. (Kindle Locations 1296-1301). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[3] Fujimura, Makoto (2016-05-01). Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering. (Kindle Locations 640-655). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.