Not For the Faint of Heart
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Scripture Reading: Matthew 16:21 – 25 (NRSV)
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Read More…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
Many years ago I was privileged to go to Israel. It was a typical Christian pilgrimage in which we saw many of the sites traditionally associated with various stories and events in the Bible. Of all the places we visited and experiences we had there was only one time I felt afraid.
We were in the old city of Jerusalem. Our tour guide was off that day, so we were set free to wander the streets and the shops. It was the first time I’d ever been in a non-Western city. There were shops lined wall to wall on both sides of what can’t really be called a street – it was pedestrian traffic only; if I stood in the middle with both arms outstretched I could touch the shop walls on either side. There were people everywhere. It was loud and crowded and colourful. I stopped for a moment to look at a pair of sandals in front of a shop and before I knew it I’d been ushered into the shop. I was ill-equipped (to seriously understate the issue) to deal with what I experienced as the aggressiveness of the shop-keeper. Feeling increasingly trapped in the shed-like shop, I turned to leave. He followed, yelling in a language I didn’t understand. I picked up speed traveling down the street, weaving in and out between the blur of people, desperately searching for the group I’d lost in my shoe distraction.
Those feelings of fear and claustrophobia, the smells and sounds and colours that overwhelmed my senses, all come to mind every time I imagine Jesus walking to the place of His crucifixion, carrying the perhaps 100 lb cross beam of the instrument of His death across His shoulders. And when I read Jesus’ words to His disciples, that any who want to be His followers must take up their cross (Mt. 16:24), I remember that long-ago experience, I imagine the raw wounds on His back, further aggravated by the rough wood and weight of the terrible burden, and I wonder how Jesus could ask the same of us.
“If any want to become my followers,” He said, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to consider what this means for you. We don’t live in a part of the world where anything close to literal crucifixion is likely for those who follow Jesus. So what does this mean? for us? in Canada in 2020? What does it mean to deny ourselves and take up our cross? And why would anyone in their right mind do it?