The Higher Road.  Matthew 16.24-27

He usually hung around the perimeter, observing whatever was happening or being said … then came forward to say ‘hello’ and comment.  Small in stature, Bernard had a very keen mind.  He had been a general surgeon in the country of Cameroon, spoke five languages, trained at the Vatican, and somehow wound up on the mean streets of Long Beach. We had a lively, albeit unlikely, friendship, and I enjoyed his insights immensely.  He would often bring me gifts he had found on the street that he thought I would like.  One time he told me about finding a wooden cross and dragging it to the Friends Church (where the homeless met for sanctuary, food, and prayer with me)!  “Mama,” he said, (with the accent on the second syllable), gesturing with index finger in the air, “it was most unusual dragging the heavy cross down the street; I was well aware that people were looking at me.  I felt embarrassed, but then I felt ashamed because my Lord dragged his cross for me—do you know what I’m saying, Mama?”  I can still picture Bernard, clad in a couple jackets, always wearing a hat, and sporting a scraggly gray beard wrestling with the notion of carrying a heavy cross.

Bernard dragging the old wooden cross is symbolic of what I believe we are all meant to do in our lifetime — struggle with the cross and its implication in our lives.

You know, sometimes Jesus' teachings are beautiful, and of course, they are always filled with wisdom; our last briefing mentioned the need to dig deeper when we do not understand what he is saying.  However, some of Jesus' teaching is downright difficult. Closing out chapter sixteen, Matthew captures Jesus’ words: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.”1

Seems Jesus is saying that Christianity is not just an easy verbal profession,                                 it must be a way of life.

Being a Christian is not just what we call ourselves, but what we live. Actually, in today’s culture, the term Christian is so broad as to be oft cheapened and even abused.  Being a follower of Jesus Christ will require us to take the road less traveled. So when Jesus says, 'if anyone will come after Me, he must deny himself daily, pick up his cross, and follow Me', we must know that following him means doing what he has taught us, what we find within the pages of Scripture.

What in the world is meant by denying one’s self?  Well, to deny myself means I say No to me, and Yes to God. What that looks like for each of us is individual, sometimes situational or cultural. 

For every believer, to deny self is to take the higher road of faith, rather than fixating on what might happen, putting our hand in the hand of the one who knows and sees time in a single take.  The thing about which you and I might be agonizing, God sees already complete; he is not bound by time as we know it.  To deny self is to choose to believe that God knows best, in spite of our circumstances, in spite of hurt, and he is trustworthy. 

To deny myself and take up the cross is to be mistreated yet make the choice to keep still… “Never take vengeance into your own hands, my dear friends: stand back and let God punish if he will. For it is written: ‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay’.”2

  To deny yourself and pick up your cross is owning your faith and commitment

  to Jesus Christ, no matter what others think…

         and in some countries, in spite of what they might do to you.

     Syrian Christians pick up their crosses by remaining faithful, holding fast to                                        

     the Lord in the face of persecution, displacement and hunger.

To be sure, picking up our cross is not oft literal as it was for my friend Bernard in Long Beach, but Jesus makes it clear just the same that if we are to follow him, we will be required to choose the road less taken—the higher road.  As Robert Frost penned,                                                                                   “I shall be telling this with a sigh

   Somewhere ages and ages hence:

       Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

           I took the one less traveled by,

              And that has made all the difference.”3

1 – Matthew 16.24-27

2 – Romans 12.19, JB Phillips

3 – “The Road Not Taken” Robert Frost, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536