The symbol of the cross is seen nearly everywhere. It’s the universal symbol of Christianity and its meaning becomes uniquely individual when someone chooses to wear a cross. To many, it is a daily testament of Christ’s sacrifice in their life. To others, it serves as a comforting symbol of divine protection and blessing, while some simply wear it because it’s bling and it is classy jewelry that they can wear.
Yet for some, the cross is simply a physical symbol or idol that clouds their vision of the real God. When we turn to Scripture, we find that the concept of the ‘cross’ does convey a deep, essential, spiritual meaning. It goes far beyond a mere expression of personal identity and bling; it is a reality meant to be actively expressed and lived out in our daily lives.
A foundational teaching of Christ stands as an incredibly profound and deeply challenging mandate to anyone who claims His name: “Then [Christ] said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me’” (Luke 9:23). This is far from an abstract theological concept. Instead, it is a legitimate, intimate, urgent command speaking directly to Christ’s followers.
Christ chose to use this specific Greek word that is translated as ‘cross’ because the word had deep political, social, and emotional meaning, especially in Judea at the time Christ physically walked the earth as a human being.
To fully grasp the weight of Christ’s words, we must look back in history at the physical cross and understand the sober and severe purpose it served in the ancient Roman world. In all three gospel accounts the Greek word is stauros. While the Greek word originally described an upright, wooden stake or a fence post, the Romans and the Greeks transformed it into a psychological weapon of state horror and terror.
In the Roman context, stauros didn’t just refer to a piece of wood, it represented an efficient system of public execution engineered to inflict maximum physical agony and absolute social humiliation.
By the first century, the Roman stauros typically consisted of two distinct wooden components rather than just a single post. The first component was the vertical post. This heavy wooden beam was permanently fixed upright in the ground. Once it was put in place it was not removed and were usually placed outside of prominent cities. These vertical posts were reused repeatedly. The condemned person was forced to carry the horizontal beam through the streets to the execution site where the stauros was.
When the victim reached the site, they were nailed or tied to the crossbeam, which was then hoisted up using ropes and ladders and fastened to the vertical post, usually creating a T-shape. For those who lived under Roman rule, the word stauros designated this entire combined instrument of death, not a fence post.
The primary objective of the stauros was not actually the death of the condemned. If Rome simply wanted somebody dead, a sword chopping off their head was much cheaper and cleaner. The true purpose was deterrence through absolute horror, traumatizing not only the victim but also the viewing public, that everyone would see happening.
Crucifixions were intentionally carried out in highly visible locations, along major highways, outside city gates, and on prominent hillsides, so that everyone entering or leaving the city was forced to witness the consequences of defying Roman law. It signaled to the watching crowd that this person was already legally dead, stripped entirely of their humanity and rights.
The Roman statesman Cicero referred to crucifixion as “the most cruel and disgusting penalty imaginable”. The cross was the standard punishment for political insurrectionists, bandits, and runaway slaves. To the Roman mind, the physical pain of the cross was matched, if not surpassed, by the profound social shame it inflicted. Victims were stripped completely naked before being attached to the wood, robbing them of their final shreds of human dignity. Except in rare cases of high treason, Roman citizens were legally exempt from death by crucifixion.
In Jerusalem, if and when bodies were eventually removed, they were routinely thrown into the Gehenna Valley, which was a smoldering trash heap outside the city that served as a vivid local metaphor for judgment and hell. Scripture records that Christ died via this brutal Roman method, verified by the nail wounds in His hands and the military spear thrust into His side to confirm His death. However, for Christ, His body never saw corruption. He was spared the typical aftermath of crucifixion because of what His death and resurrection were destined to accomplish for mankind, transitioning Him from a criminal’s death to a rich man’s tomb.
When Christ turned to His disciples in Luke 9:23 and commanded them to take up their stauros, their cross, His audience did not picture a polished religious icon nor an abstract theological concept. To the first-century ear “taking up a cross” meant one thing, a conscious, informed, voluntary choice to identify with the lowest, most despised class of people in the Roman Empire for the sake of God’s Kingdom.
The Apostle Paul powerfully reinforces this upside-down reality in his first letter to the Corinthians, reminding us that God intentionally builds His Kingdom from those the world rejects and those who reject the world (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).
Because this calling requires a radical shift of pride and social status, Christ is uncompromisingly clear about what it takes to accept it. True discipleship leaves no room for half-hearted commitments, competing loyalties, nor backward glances. When He asked us to pick up our cross, that was what He was saying (Luke 9:57-62).
As the called and chosen of God, followers of Christ have put their hands to the plow. We have picked up the cross and looking back is simply not an option. Our eyes must remain fixed forward, entirely consumed by the vision of His Kingdom. The Apostle Paul underscores the practical depth of this lifelong commitment in his letter to the Romans: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).
So when we put our hand to the plow, it meant one thing: we were on a one-way journey to death. We surrendered all rights to our lives, to our ambitions, to our future, all of which are temporary, and dedicated them to God. By using the stark imagery of the cross, Christ was not calling for a minor lifestyle adjustment or asking us to simply become better versions of ourselves. He was demanding our complete, undivided allegiance, picking up our cross.
We often use the phrase “cross to bear” to describe ordinary, unchosen hardships like a difficult boss, or a chronic illness (which if you live long enough you’re going to have), or a broken-down car. While these can be undoubtedly heavy burdens that require God’s Spirit, patience and faith to handle, equating them with the biblical call to “take up your cross” is a profound misunderstanding of Christ’s words. Everyday suffering is just a byproduct of living in a broken world. It happens to everyone, and it’s something we would deal with whether or not we were called by Christ and asked to pick up the cross.
By contrast, true cross-bearing in its original first-century context implies a voluntary, daily surrender of self-interest. It represents chosen suffering. Not those things that time and chance bring upon us. It represents the unique costs, sacrifices, and rejections that a person willingly accepts because they have decided to follow Christ. We do not choose life’s unavoidable friction, but we do choose whether or not to pick up our cross, trading the preservation of our ego and self-interests for a much higher calling. “If they persecuted Me, they’ll persecute you.”
Though this may sound like a morbid, hard way of life, the great paradox of the Christian life is that “dying to self” isn’t a call to a miserable, joyless existence. In God’s spiritual economy, death always precedes resurrection and true life.
Christ immediately follows His radical command in Luke 9:23-25 with a promise: whoever loses their life for His sake will truly find it. Also in God’s spiritual economy, emptying oneself of self-centeredness is the very thing that clears the ground for pure joy, lasting purpose, and abundant spiritual life, now and into the future. As John 10:10 states, “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Picking up the cross, having an abundant life seems like a dichotomy. But God promises it is not.
However, if we do not accept the cross with all the shame it entails in our life as Christ did, we will not share in His glory. Metaphorically, our decayed bodies will be ashes in the embers of the Gehenna Valley instead of resurrected to eternal life. Though we may have a criminal’s death, we’ll have a rich man’s burial and the right for a resurrection. Let’s look at how beautifully this truth is woven throughout the entire New Testament:
• “Taking Up the Cross” core command centers on self-denial
Taking up the cross does center on self-denial. Having examined Luke 9:23, look at the other two parallel gospel accounts to see how they reinforce this absolute requirement of self-denial: Matthew 16:24-25 and Mark 8:34-35.
Denying ourselves is to be a continual daily discipline. Taking up of our cross does not refer to the trials that come as a natural consequence of living in a broken world. It is required to be considered a disciple of Christ (Luke 14.27). This self-denial is a mandate. Resisting the cross of self-denial can make our efforts to follow Christ completely null and void.
• “Taking Up the Cross” of self-denial means Crucifying the Flesh
The apostles frequently used the imagery of the cross to explain how Christians must deal with the “old man”, our sinful nature, and the personal ambitions that we have, our ego. Paul was quite clear in this (Galatians 2:20, Romans 6.6). Followers of Christ sacrifice their lives for Him; They have taken up their cross (Romans 12:1, Colossians 3:3-5). This idea of crucifying the flesh also carries a daily application. Paul looked at carrying his cross as something that immediately preceded the resurrection.
• “Taking Up the Cross” means Sacrificial Love and Humility
Taking up the cross means loving others the same way Christ loved us by putting their needs above our own comfort. This standard of sacrificial love and deep humility requires a complete reorientation of how we view our status, how we view our rights, and our relationships with those around us. It doesn’t have to do with us, about our status, our rights. It is about the relationship that we have with others.
Look at Christ’s standards of this love and humility: Philippians 2:3-8 and Matthew 20:27-28. We are required to emulate Christ’s sacrificial example (John 15:12-13, Ephesians 5:1).
• “Taking Up the Cross” by Counting the Cost and Choosing Obedience over Comfort
Following Jesus requires a conscious decision to prioritize His kingdom over worldly security, reputation, and approval. This intentional accounting of what must be surrendered underscores the absolute incompatibility of divided allegiances (Matthew 6:24, Galatians 1:10).
It is our logical, rational decision to always count the cost and choosing obedience over comfort (Luke 14:28-33). And Philippians 3:7-8 calculates the value of surrender.
• “Taking Up the Cross” means Enduring Social Cost, Ridicule, and Suffering
Taking up the cross means recognizing that identifying with a crucified Savior will sometimes bring friction with the surrounding culture. “Suffering” is going to happen. Scripture reveals the enduring social cost, ridicule, and suffering that naturally result from a life aligned with Christ (2 Timothy 3:12, John 15:18-19). And not only do we accept friction will happen, we also are to accept following Christ’s lead in how we react to it (1 Peter 2:21, Hebrews 13:12-13).
Just as Christ was treated as a slave, as a reprobate and also as a noncitizen of the world, followers of Christ are to accept the same trials that He had (Matthew 5:11-12). Our reasonable service to God is taking up our cross, and to follow in the same steps of Christ when we are social outcasts, when we are ridiculed or when we suffer at the hands of the world.
• “Taking Up the Cross” is Recognizing The Paradox: Life Through Death, Joy Through Sacrifice
“Taking up the cross” recognizes the paradox that the world doesn’t see; that this “death” of carrying the cross, leads to life and it leads to joy through the sacrifice. Scripture consistently promises that the pain of taking up the cross is temporary, but the spiritual joy and eternal reward it produces are permanent. This profound paradox reveals that true life is found only through death on the cross. And lasting joy is birthed out of sacrifice:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24-25).
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17).
“looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
The true measure of our discipleship is in the life we surrender and the cross we bear. It is a call that we have been given to exit the stadium of the crowd, pick up the heavy timber of self-denial, and walk a one-way path of total allegiance to Christ and His Father, outside the city, outside of this world, to bear that same cross.
Always remember what Christ said to all who follow him in Matthew 11, to all of us who are daily taking up our cross:
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Bill Hutchison