There is a clear sense throughout the New Testament that the death of Jesus Christ is utterly unique, a one-time only event. “Christ suffered for sins, once for all,” says the letter of 1st Peter. And the purpose of that death, says Peter, is “to bring you to God.” The letter of Hebrews says, “Christ was offered once to bear the sins of humankind.” Every sin, before Jesus and after, receives absolution and forgiveness at the foot of the cross. No sin of yours—no failure, fault, or heartache—is beyond the reach of the forgiveness and healing that flow from the cross. No other sacrifice, ours or another’s, changes the world the way Jesus’ one death has. Hebrews again, “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” This is Jesus’ gift for you. Nothing else has accomplished, or will accomplish, what Jesus’ singular death on a hill outside of Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon has accomplished. The meaning of the cross is utterly unique and life-changing, for us and for the whole world.
Yet there is another sense, repeated again and again throughout the New Testament, that Jesus’ cross continues through us; that Jesus’ cross-shaped way of life is meant to be our way of life; that what is utterly unique and life-changing in him is meant to be life-changing for each of us. In today’s gospel Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, will save it.” The way to follow Jesus, day in and day out, is for us to take up the cross.
Today, Jesus offers one example of what cross-shaped life looks like. “What will it profit us to gain the whole world and forfeit our life?” In other words, what use is it to try to build your life on a world of good things only to discover that you’ve lost your best sense of self along the way? For followers of Jesus, to take up the cross means that, instead of finding our significance or worth or identity in a life that we have created for ourselves, true life is received as a gift; instead of a life we have built for ourselves, the good life is built on Jesus Christ; instead of a life we have claimed for ourselves, the truest and fullest sense of life comes in surrender and in giving ourselves away. “Those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, will save it.” The utterly unique and one-time only event of Jesus’ cross continues through us as we make the cross our way of life.
To describe this life among the earliest Christians, John Barclay uses the phrase ‘hyper-generosity.’ Hyper-generosity is the response to life received from God, built on Jesus Christ, and coming alive in and through believers through taking up the cross. For these followers of Jesus, because their significance, worth, and identity were assured in Christ, they were free to lose themselves in serving others.
So, in contrast to the culture around them that promoted ideas of giving wisely, prudently, and saw little point in giving anything substantial to the truly poor since they could never return the favor, the first followers of Jesus were generous not only to one another but to all people who had needs. They wanted everyone to receive something from the gracious gifts that God provides—the life that flows from the one-time event of Jesus’ cross and resurrection meant for all people. These followers of Jesus gave themselves away without expecting anything in return or to be repaid. After all, the grace and favor of God for us in Jesus is a gift none of us can ever repay. These Christians knew and trusted that their significance, worth, and identity were a gift received from God, built on Jesus Christ, and meant to come alive in them by giving of themselves. Taking up the cross meant a sweeping reorientation of life and its priorities, even when it meant sacrificing personal desires and ambitions.
This way of life was, perhaps unsurprisingly, perplexing to the world around them, puzzling to people who valued material success and accumulation, inconceivable in a world that promoted ideas of giving wisely, prudently, and not to people who couldn’t return the favor. We understand that, too; this is still a common mindset, isn’t it? If, for example, you showed me your will, I would know a lot about what you value by where your assets would go: family, a charity like an animal shelter or hospice, the cathedral (of course). All these would be recipients you consider worthy, deserving your support. But Barclay describes Christians giving themselves away to people otherwise overlooked or ignored, people of no perceived value—a way to take up the cross and follow.
Now this cross-shaped, cross-bearing life had to be explained to people in the broader culture because of how odd it seemed. And a man named Aristides did just that. He wrote a letter about how Christian love can’t do anything but embrace all people in need. Those who have give to those who don’t, Aristides says; and they give without boasting. When the poor die, Christians pool their resources to fund a burial. If anyone is hungry, Aristides describes how the early followers of Jesus would fast for two or three days and then give food that they didn’t eat to the hungry and poor so that they could eat. (This, by the way, is one of the reasons Christians began to fast during the 40 Days of Lent. It wasn’t only imitation of Jesus fasting forty days in the wilderness. In an age without refrigeration or dependable food preservation, once you got to the end of winter and the start of spring, food from the fall harvest was running low. People fasted, or had quite simple meals this time of year, so that the little food that was left could be shared by all, including what was in your cupboard to be given to the hungry. And it wasn’t only fellow believers who were cared for, though there was great care in the Christian community; Christians cared for all people in need, beyond background or boundary, just as the scriptures call us to care for all the poor, the strangers, and even foreigners in the land.
These examples of hyper-generosity were a witness, a witness noticed by the broader culture looking in at the church from the outside. But it didn’t always go over well. Christians were mocked for the way they lived. A ‘You can’t be serious!’ response prevailed, a response that even you might be thinking and feeling when you hear about this or try to imagine doing this in your life. In the eyes of the wider culture, a Jesus-shaped, cross-shaped openness to others looked reckless, a way to lose life, not find it. Yet what does Jesus say about losing and finding? “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, will save it.” How amazing would it be in our day if skeptical outsiders could look at believers, like they did in Aristides’ day and recognize Jesus in how we live and care for others? How much life in Jesus would we receive?
Jesus, in great love for us—hyper-generous love for us—takes the way of the cross. “Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed,” Nothing else can accomplish what Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished. Yet what is utterly unique and life-changing on the cross, continues through us today—not merely for our sake, but because it is the way that the grace and life of Jesus are made real in the world and with our neighbors.
If the way we live our lives shows what we value, then Jesus, by giving his life for us and for the world, shows us what he values. He values all of us, whether others see us as worthy or not. Our response, then, to the utterly unique, one-time only, life-changing event of Jesus’s cross, is to take up our cross and follow—small steps to explore the trustworthiness of God through the life of the gospel coming alive in us. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
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