Living Under the Cross

What the Cross now asks of those who follow Jesus

A reflection for the week as we journey toward Easter- Week 6

By this point in our journey, it would be easy to assume that everything essential has already been said. The Cross was necessary. Sin has been dealt with. Substitution has been made. Love has been revealed. Victory has been secured. If all this is true, then a natural question arises, often quietly and sometimes uneasily.

What, then, is asked of us?

This week, we turn to the words of Jesus Himself in Mark 8:34–38, a passage spoken before the crucifixion, yet unmistakably shaped by it. Here, Jesus addresses not only His disciples but the crowd. What He says is not reserved for a spiritual elite. It is spoken openly, plainly, and without softening.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

These words are familiar, but familiarity can blunt their force. When Jesus first spoke them, the cross was not a religious symbol. It was an instrument of execution, associated with shame, loss, and finality. To speak of taking up a cross was to speak of surrendering control, reputation, and self-protection.

Jesus is not inviting people to admire His teaching or to adopt a set of values. He is inviting them into a way of life shaped by the same self-giving movement that will soon carry Him to Calvary.

It is important to notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say that taking up the cross is a way of earning forgiveness. He does not say that suffering itself is virtuous. He does not call people to seek pain or to despise the world. Instead, He frames discipleship as a response to what He Himself is doing.

“Whoever wants to save their life will lose it,” He says, “but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

This is not a call to self-destruction. It is a call to reorientation. Jesus is exposing the illusion that life can be secured by clinging to it. True life, He says, is found by entrusting it to Him.

This is where living under the Cross must be carefully distinguished from moralism.

Moralism turns discipleship into a checklist of sacrifices meant to prove sincerity. It measures faithfulness by visible effort and quietly breeds either pride or despair. Jesus offers something different. He invites trust before effort, surrender before achievement.

To live under the Cross is not to live under constant guilt or pressure. It is to live under a new centre of gravity. The self no longer sits at the centre, making ultimate claims. Christ does.

Jesus reinforces this by asking a question that cuts through ambition and anxiety alike. “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” The question is not hypothetical. It exposes a common temptation, to secure meaning, status, or safety on our own terms, even at great cost.

The Cross interrupts that project. It declares that life is not finally found in accumulation, recognition, or control. It is found in relationship with the One who gave Himself for us.

This is why discipleship, rightly understood, is not an additional burden placed on forgiven people. It is the shape that gratitude takes when forgiveness is truly received. Having been reconciled, we are freed to follow. Having been loved at such cost, we are drawn into a different way of living.

At the same time, Jesus does not hide the seriousness of this call. He speaks of shame, allegiance, and ultimate accountability. To follow Him is not a private spiritual preference. It is a public orientation of life. The Cross reorders our loyalties.

Yet even here, assurance remains intact. The call to take up the cross is grounded in the One who will carry the heaviest cross Himself. Jesus does not ask His followers to go where He is unwilling to go. He leads the way.

Living under the Cross, then, is not about heroic self-denial. It is about daily trust. It is about learning, again and again, to loosen our grip on what we think secures us, and to rest our weight on Christ.

This way of life will look different in different circumstances. For some, it will involve costly integrity. For others, patient faithfulness in obscurity. For still others, forgiveness that feels undeserved or obedience that goes unseen. The form may vary, but the orientation remains the same.

As we approach Holy Week, the Cross now stands not only before us, but behind us and beneath us. It is no longer only the place where something was done for us. It is the shape of the life we are invited to live with Christ.

To live under the Cross is to walk in freedom, not fear. It is to follow, not in order to be accepted, but because we already are.

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,

we stand again before Your Cross.

Give us eyes to see what You have done,
hearts to trust what You have accomplished,
and lives shaped by the grace that flows from it.

Keep us from treating the Cross lightly,
or leaving it behind too quickly.

Teach us to live under its shadow,
until faith gives way to sight.

Amen.

This post is part of a seven-week Easter journey titled The Cross of Christ: A Journey for Thoughtful Believers. Each week reflects on one aspect of the Cross, anchored in a single passage of Scripture, and written for fellow believers who want to think carefully, without jargon, about what Christ has done.

If you would like to read the reflections from the beginning, you can access them here:

Introduction to the Easter Series: The Cross of Christ, A Journey for Thoughtful Believers – https://joshuawathanga.com/the-cross-of-christ/

Week 1: Why the Cross Was Necessary– https://joshuawathanga.com/why-the-cross-was-necessary/

Week 2: The Cross and the Problem of Sin – https://joshuawathanga.com/the-cross-and-the-problem-of-sin/

Week 3: The Cross and Substitution – https://joshuawathanga.com/the-cross-and-substitution/

Week 4: The Cross as the Measure of Love – https://joshuawathanga.com/the-cross-as-the-measure-of-love/

Week 5: The Cross and Christ’s Victory – https://joshuawathanga.com/the-cross-and-christs-victory/