Following Jesus, Part 3: The Cross of Discipleship

There are a few things that we Evangelicals don’t preach about: pride, sex, money, for example. But the greatest omission, perhaps, is suffering. We have divorced discipleship from suffering, yet Jesus taught that suffering was essential to the follower's life. Historically, Christians embraced this teaching. Augustine writes, “God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer also emphasizes the unbreakable bond of suffering and discipleship. He says,

“Just as Christ is Christ only in virtue of his suffering and rejection, so the disciple is a disciple only in so far as he shares his Lord’s suffering and rejection and crucifixion.”

Bonhoeffer says, “Suffering, then, is the badge of true discipleship.”

Jesus cannot be any clearer: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23) In the greater passage, Jesus teaches that denying oneself means to lose one's life, to become a different person, to embrace a new self, and gain a new life. As one does it, she discovers that she did not really know who she really was. She relizes that only now, only in Christ, she is what she was meant to be. The new self that one finds through losing the old self it the real self, the true person, the one God had dreamed up before time began. To become a true disciple of Christ one needs to confess Jesus as the Christ of God (like Peter did) and wholeheartedly embrace the scandal of the Cross. We follow the One who was crucified, so we too must take up our crosses. It is a decision and a daily struggle.

Soren Kierkegaard says, "To suffer rightly is to have a secret with God!” To suffer rightly means to suffer with Jesus, allowing Him to come alongside and help and comfort us. It means to suffer like Jesus with grace and patience. And it means to suffer for Jesus, turning every struggle and difficulty into a means of becoming more like Him and clinging closer to Him.

If one does not embrace suffering, one cannot be called a disciple of the One who suffered on our behalf. Kierkegaard rightly observes, “He who himself does not wish to suffer cannot love him who has.”