Taking up our cross

My husband often speaks of how a true Christian takes up his cross to follow Christ. I like to hear him speak of this and often find myself enjoying any conversation that includes references to this verse (Luke 9:23).

Until recently I don't suppose I had ever truly stopped to think about what...exactly...it means to take up our cross and follow Christ. I know the verse well, have heard many people speak of it, often engage in conversations with my husband on it, but I never really stopped to examine that verse before, or the meaning behind it.
How is it that some things we spend hours examining and others we understand...or think we do...on first hearing it and so don't look any deeper than our own understanding.
Christ told us we are to take up our cross...daily...and follow Him. He told us that we must deny ourselves to do this. But what exactly does this mean?
Years ago I had a short acquaintance with someone that was born with birth defects and was blind. I recall a particular conversation with this person in which this person spoke of life with the challenges they were given. This person couldn't drive, couldn't go somewhere with relying on someone else and yet this person lived alone and did many tasks on their own despite the challenges they faced to do so. In that conversation I remember it coming up that those challenges were this persons cross to bear, rather that others believed them to be that, and this person telling me that they had never considered any of these challenges to be their cross to bear. This person told me that the challenges they faced every day, challenges that most people would ask 'why me' over, were just the way it was. This person was not bearing a cross with these challenges. They were simply living their life.
And yet I have heard so many others say that an illness or financial difficulty are their cross to bear. How many times in our lives do we hear people say just such things? Even if they don't refer to them as a cross to bear they moan and complain, they whine and wonder, they bemoan those things they must face in their life. Whether they call them a cross they must bear or not, the implication is there...this is what I must endure.
But that isn't what Christ was speaking of. In that same verse (Luke 9:23) Christ said...if any man will come after me... There is the vital piece of information that is often overlooked or misunderstood when a person claims that something is their cross to bear.
So today I stopped, really stopped, to think about just what that verse means. Yes, I understand the verse. Yes, I have understood the verse for a long time. But no, until today I have never stopped, truly stopped, and pondered just what that verse means.
We, in our modern society, where crucifixions are not a part of our American culture can't truly comprehend what it would mean to take up our cross. But there was great meaning in those words in a time and place where people often died by the cross.
I used to be fascinated with the 19th century. During those days people often lost their lives in public hangings. The law used that method to rid the world of those that had done wrong. Even citizens used it when they caught someone doing something they should not be doing. These were, in many cases, public executions. Crowds of people gathered around to watch the hanging as if it was a spectator sport. It would seem to me that if someone had told anyone in those days to make a noose and follow them that person would have well understood the meaning behind the noose. It's something that they would have very likely seen put to use at some point in their life and if they had never seen one used they would have understood, well, the meaning behind what it stood for. It wasn't an abstract concept.
I recently had a conversation with a family member about prison. It was a brief conversation that I can't even recall the reason for now. But I well remember telling that family member that prison is an abstract concept for most people in America today. Even when we know someone, or know of someone, that has or is in prison, it is an abstract concept unless that person is close enough to us that we feel the effects of prison. We know prison exists but until we are personally touched by it, it is something that is simply out there somewhere.
What is a cross to modern day Americans? It is an abstract concept at best. If we are Christians we understand well that our Savior died on a cross for us. But even in that understanding the cross stays an abstract concept. We may recoil in horror at the thought of being crucified but do we truly understand what taking up a cross would mean? And can we possibly understand what it means to take up our cross?
In Christ's day when a person took up their cross...they were headed to their death. They had been tried and convicted. They had been given the death penalty. They were about to lose their life. They were essentially looking down the barrel of a loaded gun as someone pulled the trigger.
They picked up their cross in order to carry it to their own death. Their earthly days were about to end. They would soon draw their final breath. Life for them was over. At least on this earth.
So when Christ said that to follow Him we must pick up our cross he was using a term that was very meaningful in His day but has lost much of that meaning in our day. He was saying take up the instrument of your death and follow me.
Can you imagine how you would feel if you were looking at the very thing that was about to take your life? Can you imagine the thoughts and emotions that would flood your body? Would your heart race? Would your legs tremble? Would your hands shake? Would you cry? Would you beg? What would you do if you knew you were facing the very thing that would take your earthly life?
That was what a cross was. It represented the very thing that would take their life.
And this is what Christ says we must pick up if we are to follow him.
We must pick up the very thing that will take our life. And Christ does take our life. Our earthly life. I can well attest to the things of this world that Christ takes from us. There are many of those things that I used to take great pleasure in that I no longer find interesting in the least. And now I get joy in things I once paid no attention to. We pick up our cross and follow Christ and in doing so we lose this earthly life.
When a person picked up their cross...they were about to die. And when we pick up that cross, we must die to our selves, die to this earthly world, die to all the sinful pleasures of this life. Galatians 5:24 says...they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.We must die in our flesh in order to live in the Spirit.
There are many people that claim to be 'Christians' that live no differently than someone that is an atheist. They watch the same horrible movies, enjoy the same sin filled hobbies, engage in the same sexual immorality. They live as the world, act as the world, and yet they claim to be 'Christians'. That is not picking up their cross. It is not dying in the flesh. It is not following Christ.
Galatians goes further to give us an understanding of how a Christian should see the world. Verse 6:14 says...God forbid that i should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
In other words the world is dead to a Christian and a Christian is dead to the world.
That is taking up our cross.