It’s hard to follow. It’s hard to be disciplined and it is hard to be a disciple. We see the words and it almost always comes back to a sense of having to “do”. Discipleship seems to correlate with doing things, accomplishing the tasks set before us and as we “do” these things we grow.
The growth that happens when we “do” things is usually a thing. We most always grow. We grow in knowledge because we are reading our bible, studying and getting things into our heads. We grow in our understanding because we are talking these things through with other people, we are comparing different ideas and concepts. We grow in efficiency because we can pray faster with more clarity, we can read quicker because we have read it before (or at least we know now how to read theological texts).
What is often true about discipleship is it builds us in our knowledge and understanding especially in our western culture of getting things done and getting better at doing those things over time.
Discipleship can become a checklist.
What if it’s more than that?
What if it’s as simple as following after?
A text that has come to my attention anew, some words spoken by Jesus 2000 years ago ring true today about what it means to be his disciple in any age. He said to everyone:
“…if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Luke 9:23 (ESV)
These words are challenging to us. They prod us to think through what it actually means to be his disciple. What it means to live as a believer today.
I have not stopped thinking through these words and those that follow in this short pericope.
This idea of discipleship is captured in the first six words, “if anyone would come after me”. Before we can even begin to unpack the reality of what it means to deny self and take up a cross, we first need to come to grips with what it means to come after him – to be his disciple.
That word “would” suggests choice, and there is evidently a great deal of choice in this decision. As we read through the rest of the text the journey sounds difficult. It sounds onerous.
The question, before we even know the details, is whether we will follow after him. Is that the life we have chosen for ourselves? What we are really signing on for: to be embroiled in fully understanding what it means to be human, what dignity in the face of the creator God of universe looks like, real self-discovery, a life lived in reality.
To make the choice to follow after him, to be his disciple is to make the choice to fully live in the now and also into eternity with a sense of awe and wonder ever in our minds eye.
Coming after Jesus? It sounds like a chasing after, a game of ever-changing movement forward with an always altering endzone.
It is because discipleship is not just about the “doing” it’s about the being. Discipleship is about chasing after Jesus. Coming after him is about following. And what becomes clear as we begin the journey is that we don’t often know how or why we turn one way or another except that it is the way our King directs us.
Coming after Jesus – chasing after him, desiring so desperately to be near to him and catch the quiet words from his lips reflects a heart change from the rebel to the follower. The follower willing to devoid of themselves the false them, the worldly fantastical creature they imagine, for the reality of a self fully fulfilled in the perfect image of Jesus.
Denial is less about telling oneself not to do this or that, but to chase after the self that Jesus is creating in us. A denial of who we were before Jesus and following after him to discover the new but also the original self he created before the tarnished rebel-sin took hold.
Taking hold of what it means to follow, to be a disciple of Jesus is hard. It pulls us from the comfort of our rebellious selves and into the light where we are made visible. But what makes all this not just easier or simpler, is the reality that we don’t do it alone. Following after Jesus echoes in our hearts and minds the journey that isn’t done by ourselves but with a partner that carries the load with us.
He leads by example, taking up a cross before we ever understood its significance. It’s a cross that has brought him death but you and I life. The cross he calls us to carry leads only to life. A life with him, a life in him. A life dedicated to following so closely behind him it almost always feels as though he carries us.
Do the hard thing…follow after him. Dedicating ourselves to the call to live in the reality of his light and love, grace and justice.
