Taking Up a Cross the Empire Built

When Jesus said, "If anyone would come after Me, let me deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me," we need to remember what the cross actually was. It wasn't a piece of jewelry. It wasn't a metaphor for mild inconvenience. The cross was Rome's instrument of state-sponsored terror, reserved for those who threatened the imperial order.

Rachel Held Evans once observed that following Jesus has never been about comfort — it's about solidarity with the ones the world discards. Discipleship in the way of Jesus means walking toward the margins, not away from them.

Consider the volunteers at a border town church in Arizona who leave water jugs in the desert for migrants crossing in deadly heat. They have been arrested for it. Charged with littering on federal land. They deny themselves the safety of compliance, pick up a cross shaped like a gallon jug of water, and follow the One who said, "I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink."

That is what Luke 9:23 looks like with skin on — not a privatized faith that asks only what Jesus can do for my soul, but a embodied discipleship that asks where the crucified people of today are and whether we have the courage to stand beside them.