Jesus Takes Up His Cross

John 19:16-18

“There has been a choice for 2000 years for every Christian who has ever felt threatened, who has ever felt oppressed, and who has ever felt persecuted. And that choice is very simple,” stated author and journalist Tim Alberta to his audience at Michigan State University. “You can reach for the sword, or you can reach for the cross.”  

The gospel of John is the only one of the four to record Jesus taking up his own cross. The other three are in agreement that a man named Simon was compelled to carry it for him. Biblical scholar Dr. Clark Peddicord believes that the reason for this distinction in the book of John may well be to emphasize that Jesus chose the cross. He chose it, despite every temptation not to. 

“I don’t know him,” Peter claimed. I once thought that this denial was solely due to a lack of courage. But remember how the same person also took up the sword to defend Jesus when soldiers came to arrest him. I will stand with you even unto death, he had declared just hours earlier, and he was being true to his word, until Jesus shut him down. Fear likely played a part in his denial, but do you also detect anger, confusion, wounded pride, and a bitter sense of disappointment at work? From Peter’s perspective, this was absolutely NOT the plan. And in a very real sense, he did not yet know the Messiah who rejects the sword and chooses the cross. What manner of salvation could this be? Even now, it’s not the kind of salvation we tend to seek. 

The temptation to reach for the sword is still very real. As Tim Alberta explains, “The sword can be military power. It can be political influence. It can be the promises and the rhetoric of a strongman who says that they’re going to protect you and defeat your enemies and keep you safe.” The attractiveness of this option is undeniable. But the cross that Jesus chose still haunts our human nature with its weighty invitation to take it up, as Simon did, and follow the Wounded Healer. Will we? 

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2: 21-24)