Do you really want the crown?

Thomas A. Kempis wrote long ago that “the Lord has many lovers of His crown, but few lovers of His cross.” I find this to be no less true in our day and age. I think that we have missed the point if we gaze upon the cross and ponder the crown. To fill our minds with heavenly thoughts while faced with the brutality and pain of the cross is a travesty. Jesus came to show us a way of life. He came to show us how we could embrace the Kingdom of God, not in heaven, but on earth. He came to show us that eternal life is not a place or a time, but an attitude of the heart that we will not inherit in some future time or distant place, but now and here. He came to show us that we are to love and value others even if it means we do without to allow someone else to have. He told us time and time again to deny ourselves. He told us that we have a cross to bear.

We read this today and we think we understand what Jesus was saying. But remember, when He speaks of the cross to those people, He has not yet been crucified. The cross was a symbol and tool of the Roman Empire to demonstrate the power of the empire. Anyone who went against the Roman Empire was hung on a cross at the entrance of the city as an example to all of what happens to those who feel that they can “go against the empire”. The cross was a brutal reminder to the Jews that they were a captive people, an occupied nation. What must it have sounded like to them when Jesus told them to pick up the cross and carry it? Maybe it would have been the same response that one might have today if Jesus told us to “deny yourself, strap on a incendiary bomb and follow me.” Or “deny yourself, board flight 93 on Sept 11th and follow me.” What Jesus was suggesting was a radical denial of self. One that put ones self in the direct line of fire on purpose. Why? Because all of these brutal attempts to control other people lose their force when we refuse to be held captive by their threats. The best way to demonstrate this is to embrace it. Think how disarming it would be if you were held at gun point and the robber asked for your money and you step toward the assailant such that the barrel of the gun was pressed up against your chest and you said, “pull the trigger and it s all yours.” Now the tables have turned. The assailant may pull the trigger, but for all their life they will remember that they were not enriched by conquering you by your own fear, but rather they took your life which you freely gave. This is all together a different situation.

Let us keep in mind the life that Jesus has called us into. Let us remember what the words of Jesus were all about. So, when we gaze upon the cross, lets not think about heaven or a crown, lets remember that Christ strapped on the bomb, boarded the flight or stood in front of the barrel of the gun and looked back at you and me and said, “are you coming?” Those who step forward to take their place next to Jesus will soon receive that coveted crown.