Sermon: “Take Up Your Cross” Matthew 16:21-28 , March 1, 2026

Scripture: Matthew 16:21-28

Preacher: Ryan Slifka

Sermon: “Take Up Your Cross”

Today we’re continuing in the season of Lent. Good Friday, Jesus crucifixion, is weeks away. But in today’s scripture Jesus brings it in to focus. The cross is front and center.

We’re told that Jesus shows his disciples that “he must go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders, chief priests and scribes, be killed. And on the third day be raised.” Presumably he shows them via a Bible study of what we call the Old Testament scriptures. Likely something from Isaiah, who portrays the Messiah of God as the “suffering servant.” Seeing as how I’m the Messiah, Jesus says, the cross is waiting for me. This is the divine plan.

Now, Peter, Jesus’ right hand man, thinks Jesus is insane. He drags him away from the classroom, lays into him. “No way, Lord!” he says. “That must never happen to you.”

Peter’s rebuke, however, is met with an even bigger rebuke by Jesus. One commentator says that Jesus “wheels around as a sign of revulsion.”[i] Now, remember that Jesus is the one who gives Peter the name “Peter” meaning “rock,” because he’s the rock on which Jesus is gonna build his church. Here Jesus calls him the devil! “Get behind me,” he says. “No wonder I named you Peter–you’re like a boulder in my path that’s trying to trip me up! You’re thinking like a human being, get back with the divine plan.”

Jesus rebukes Peter for suggesting that he avoid suffering and death. But, Jesus says, there’s no getting around the cross for the Messiah of God. It’s demonic to believe otherwise, in fact.

But wait, there’s more. Because the Messiah’s not the only one whose destined for a cross.

“You wanna follow me?” Jesus says. “Anybody who wants to follow me let them deny themselves! Let them take up their own cross and follow! You wanna save your life? You’ll lose it. You wanna gain your life, you gotta give it away. You gotta lose it to find it! After all, what good is gaining the whole world if you lose your life, your soul?”

The Messiah’s not the only one destined for a cross. Not only must the Messiah suffer in this way, Jesus says. But a cross awaits anyone who wants to be his disciple. Anyone who wants to follow him!

Anyone who wants to follow him. I don’t know how you feel about that. But I know how I feel about that. Not so great! Because I know what anyone means. It means me.

That’s because I’m like Peter. And I have a sneaking suspicion that you’re like him, too. The late great Catholic reformer, Hans Kung, said that these words from Jesus are “apparent to anyone who has seen how often a person tries to get away from his own cross, all his daily obligations, demands, claims, promises in his own family or calling.”[ii] Not only have I seen it! But I’ve felt it.

And think about the spirituality we’re drawn to. I wanna learn meditation so I’m less stressed out. I wanna work out to impress all the other dads at the pool. I wanna be alone in nature to hear the sweet song of the birds in the trees–and by implication escape all the noise and sin and neediness of my fellow human beings. And think about the “goodness” we’re into as well. Press releases, clever memes, which products we buy and don’t buy and influencers who find their way into our inbox. Not a cross in sight, unless it’s the one we’re prepping for “those other people.”

Like Peter, we are repelled by a spirituality that might demand, suffering, sacrifice. True, modern people tend to cringe at the idea that suffering and the death of the Messiah is part of any kind of divine plan. What bugs us even more, though, is the idea that any kind of divine plan might include a cross of our own. Yours or mine. 

Which, I get it. The reason why we don’t like it is because suffering stinks. It’s unpleasant. And if we think suffering itself is somehow good, we can develop a martyr complex, be taken advantage of by others, or take pride in our victimhood. That our worth to others and God is bound up with how much pain we can endure. Or it’s an invitation to self-righteoussness–hey everybody, look how big the cross I’m carrying is!” There’s that great line that says it all: “Get down from the cross… we could use the wood.”[iii] There’s nothing inherently good or virtuous in suffering.

But none of this changes the fact that authentic Christian spirituality involves suffering. It involves sacrifice. There is no way around the cross for Jesus. No way around the cross for us.

Now, does this mean we should go looking for crosses to carry? The answer is no. Again, this is the gateway to self-righteousness and unnecessary self-flagellation.

One thing we have to remember is that Jesus did not look for suffering–it found him. It was thrust upon him, in fact.[iv] Interpreters throughout the history of the church have read this instruction from Jesus in the same way. St. Augustine in the 5th century: “let him bear what ever trouble he [already] has.” Or the Reformer Martin Luther: our cross “should be the kind of suffering we have not chosen ourselves.” Or the 17th century, Matthew Henry uses the example of Simon of Cyrene, who was grabbed from the crowd and forced to carry the cross with Jesus. “We must not make crosses for ourselves,” says Henry, “but we must accommodate ourselves to those crosses God has made for us.”[v]

Which is to say whether it’s God who gives us a cross or just life, suffering will find us. The question is whether we’ll face it or not. If we take hold of it, or do our best to hide, escape, or turn away. 

So how do we do that?

Now, this may seem a little counter-intuitive. But the answer is found in the last section of our scripture passage:

“For the Son of Man,” Jesus says. “The Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.”

Here we take a rather abrupt turn from “take up your cross” and “embrace suffering,” to Judgment Day. The return of Jesus at the end of time. “Jesus is comin’ back! And he’s gonna pay back every single individual for every single deed.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t exactly make me wanna take up my cross and follow. Truth be told, it actually makes me wanna run and hide! Somehow the idea of a total moral inventory of my life before the Creator of the universe doesn’t seem exactly comforting to me. Mostly because I know me.

And yet, Jesus’ originally listeners would have heart it exactly this way. As a comfort, rather than a terror. Why?

The late Swiss theologian Ulrich Luz in his commentary on Matthew asks this same question. Why would others have heard comfort considering there is so much warning here?

His answer is this: “That they actually experienced the future judge with them. Going before them in suffering, and resurrection, blessing them, calling them back (behind) himself when they failed or denied him, and promised to be with them in all their mission days.”[vi] Which is to say, after encountering Jesus in his death and resurrection, they came to trust in his grace. That, in the end, they would get “treated far beyond their deserving.”[vii]

On account of Jesus, they’d come to have “confidence in the future Victory of God.”[viii] Where every suffering would be healed. And every loss would be repaid ten-fold. That whatever life they lost, they would gain it eternally. Not a terror, but a comfort. One that gave them strength to take up their crosses. Every last one of them.

You may have heard of the recent sentencing of Hong Kong newspaper editor Jimmy Lai. Lai is a pro-democracy activist, one who has tirelessly campaigned for freedom of the press and expression in Hong Kong since its takeover by the Chinese party from Britain in 1997. Based on this activism Lai was convicted in 2020 based on a new national security law, and was finally sentenced on February 9th–at the age of 78–to twenty years in prison. Most human rights organizations, by the way, condemn his conviction and sentences as a farce. Politically motivated.[ix]

I’d heard about his arrest and his sentence, and his resolve and courage. But one thing I hadn’t heard about was just how important his Christian faith has been all the way through.

Lai actually had the opportunity to leave Hong Kong before he was arrested, but chose to stay–for the sake of Chinese democracy, yes. But because to do so was part of what he saw as his Christian duty. And one of the ways they have punished him in prison, in fact, is by denying him Holy Communion. Which we’re going to partake in later in this service.

Earlier this month, his daughter, Claire Lai, wrote an incredibly moving piece, “The Faith of My Father, Jimmy Lai.”[x] She writes about how painful it has been to visit him, seeing his body waste away from malnutrition, and the anger she felt at the clear abuses he’d experienced at the hands of the communist. But her father has stayed resolute. She wrote to him at one point expressing doubts as to whether or not he or she had chosen the right path. “How can you doubt,” he asked. “Since God is so good?”

It’s clear to me that, from beginning to end, that it’s God who has given him the strength to pick up his cross, to sacrifice. The courage to face tremendous suffering. But through it, he’s also been given something more.

“It has had the effect of bringing him closer to Jesus this life and next,” his daughter writes. “And, in imagery I now often evoke, I’m reminded that although Christ suffers most, he teaches his disciples to pretend they are hiding at the foot of the crucifixion, which represents profound voluntary suffering. My father said he was grateful for the suffering that got him closer to God’s presence, saying “God’s action confounds but always turns out to be marvelous for us.” 

He’s been able to carry this cross on account of Jesus. And not only that, the most profound thing is that even though he’s lost everything else, he has gained his soul. He has been given a foretaste of what Jesus calls “eternal life,” here and now.

I mean, what I love the most is that the painting in the frame in this photo is Jesus from Michaelangelo’s painting of the final judgment!

Because what has sustained him is the presence of Jesus in his sufferings! What has sustained him is confidence in the Lord’s future victory where every tear will be wiped away, and everything he’s lost in this life will be returned to him ten-fold. 

“On Dad’s first day in prison,” Claire says. “he told me he was in God’s good hands.” And you know what my dear friends, he still is! No matter what they do to him. Jimmy Lai is the man who, in William Barclay’s words, ‘bet his life that there is a God’ who in the ends has found life.” Or, perhaps a bit more precisely, life has found him.

And you know what the best of it is, dear friends? The best of it is that the Jesus who has helped carry Jimmy Lai’s cross is the same Jesus who promises himself to us in our own, even though they may be smaller and far more ordinary.

Because Jesus guarantees life to all who lose theirs, trust that no matter what you face, no matter what cross you’ve being given to carry, you can do it with courage and boldness, knowing that you are safely in the scarred hands of the crucified Lord! And that those same hands will keep you until that day where God is all in all. And every loss repaid.

May you cling to that old rugged cross, knowing that Christ carries it with you! May you come to know the power and presence of God, and may it sustain you until that day when every cross is traded for a crown!

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

[i] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Churchbook: Matthew 13-28, rev. ed (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 144.

[ii] Hans Kung, On Being a Christian (New York: Image Books, 1984), 576-77.

[iii] Tom Waits, “Come On Up to the House,” Mule Variations, ANTI-Epitaph Records, 1999. Though he was not the originator of the phrase.

[iv] “Jesus did not look for suffering, it was forced on him.” Ibid., 576.

[v] All three quotes in Bruner, The Churchbook, 151.

[vi] Ibid., 160.

[vii] Calvin, quoted in ibid., 160.

[viii] M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, 352.

[ix] Michael Sean Winters, “Jimmy Lai was Convicted for his Pro-Democracy Work,” National Catholic Reporter, December 19, 2025. https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/jimmy-lai-was-convicted-his-faith-and-his-pro-democracy-work

[x] Claire Lai, “The Faith of My Father, Jimmy Lai: He Prays for his Communist Captors,” Unherd. February 11, 2026. https://unherd.com/2026/02/the-faith-of-my-father-jimmy-lai/