If someone wants to come after me...

[AI translation] Among Jesus' statements calling us to follow Him, there are many that seem like something very difficult. Here, too, He speaks of self-denial, of cross-bearing. It is as if He wants to discourage people from following Him. It's as if you're doing counter-propaganda for your own cause. He makes such hard and strict demands on those who follow Him that it is a wonder if anyone is tempted to follow Him! 'Deny yourself, take up your cross, lose your life...' - it is to such expressions that the world says that religion, Christianity, does not preach a practical enough way of life, it makes one resigned, resigned, passive, pessimistic. It binds him, burdens him, prevents him from freely expressing his individuality. Well, let us now take a closer look at whether this is really the case. Is it really true that what Jesus says here about self-denial and taking up the cross oppresses, restricts, inhibits man? I myself have not experienced it that way. In fact, everything Jesus says - including what I have just read out - is gospel, or, in other words, good news. Gospel, that is, a divine word which does not bind, but frees from all other bonds; it does not cripple, but fulfils life.There is indeed a very serious, very hard statement in this saying of Jesus, but it is not what we would think. It is not cross-bearing, it is not self-denial. No! - It is this passage, "If anyone will come after me!" So it's "wants". That's where our following Christ tends to stop, not at the baptism! So that's where the Christian man doesn't really take seriously that he has to want it himself! Because it is one thing to do something out of habit, or to want it myself! It is another thing if I do something just because I want to, or if I really want to do it! It is another thing, a very different result, if I just approve of the Christian life, or if I want it desperately! Even if I want to follow Jesus or if I want to follow Him, there is a big difference! There is a huge difference between, say, sympathising with the cause of Jesus and wanting to put it into practice in my own life. So let's understand it well: Jesus is not saying that if someone approves of what I teach; nor is he saying that if someone wants to live as I say; nor is he saying that if someone sympathises with me, then... But this: if anyone wants to!
Do you really want? Do you want to follow Jesus?! This is the first question. And that's the hard one! Really want it! And this statement of Jesus is especially relevant today: if anyone wants to come after me. It is as if he stands before our souls and asks each of us personally: do you want? Because - as I have said many times - today everyone is the religion they profess, not the religion they were born with. Today, it matters less and less who is registered where and with what denomination, and more and more who is on the side of their decision. Now everyone is truly at a crossroads and can go where they want! Have we really asked ourselves seriously whether we really want to follow Jesus?Someone might say: of course we do, because that is why we are here and not somewhere else! Our very presence in a church is a statement of the question of what we want! Well, I don't want to doubt it, there is undoubtedly some testimony to following Christ in the mere fact of going to church on a Sunday morning rather than watching television. It is true! But it is not enough. It is here, in the temple, that Jesus asks those who come here: do you really want to follow me?! Do you?! To follow Jesus, to live the Christian life, is only something that one wants!
It is not that a Christian life can be achieved by a strong will, but the will means a decision: a determination! And as I know other Christians through myself, I am afraid: there is a fundamental problem here: we do not want it enough, we do not really want it! Does not the redemptive work of Jesus mean very little in our practical lives because we ourselves do not really want to live a redeemed life?! Are we not so helplessly stuck in our old sins because we ourselves have not really wanted to be cleansed from them? Isn't it because we ourselves are not so serious about following Him that the world doesn't see us as followers of Jesus?! Because we have not yet made a firm decision in our lives to give our whole being to Jesus, and to submit it to His lordship?! Because we have still not dared to say with full determination the great decisive word: "I will! Yes: I want! I want to step on the path on which Jesus is leading!
So, with this word of Jesus: "If anyone wants to follow me", he is waiting first of all for our decision. Right now, in this moment, you can make that decision. Now, in this moment, you can say to him in the depths of your soul: 'Yes, Lord, I want to! I want to follow you! I really want to! Well, now Jesus makes this decision more concrete when he says: "Deny yourself!" Let us not misunderstand him, let us not be deterred: Jesus is not urging the person who wants to follow him to destroy his own individuality, to carry out a certain "spiritual harakiri", to kill all desire, will and initiative. It is not even a question of some kind of asceticism, of fasting, of suffering, of torturing oneself. Jesus never asks His followers to adopt a world-denying, world-weary attitude, but only to surrender control over themselves to Him! Entrust the leadership of your life to Him. And in doing so, He actually wants what is good for us. The best! Because if He is not the supreme Lord of our lives, then we are always held captive by something else. It doesn't matter what it is: maybe money, or a passionate emotion, maybe sexual instinct, or some fear, or my own vanity. Yes, these things tend to take hold of us. Such things tend to control our thoughts, our actions. And it's not good, it's not good. One cannot escape, one becomes a prisoner of that which holds the center of one's being.
Well, it is from this very bondage that Jesus wants to free us. He is saying: deny the tyrant under whose rule you are, dethrone him and make him free for me! Then you will see that you will be set free under my rule! So I must deny my old self, the unbelieving, the heartless, the selfish, the timid, the carnal self, so that the life of Christ may unfold in me. It is not the desires, the passions, the emotions of your heart that dictate what you do, what you say, where you go, or where you don't go, but - Jesus! Listen to Jesus. Those who want to say yes to Jesus often find themselves in a situation where they have to say no to themselves, to their own heart, to their own mind. So it is not life that I have to deny myself, but death, the death that works in me! It is not, then, a painful renunciation, but precisely a becoming fit for a fuller life: a preparation to be placed in the power of a force that is not me, but - Jesus! To renounce the centre of my being, myself, so that my whole life may be reorganised around another centre - Christ. That is to say, to fit into the eternal order and harmony of the universe. In fact, what Jesus wants here is that in the smallest and greatest things of our lives, in our decisions, He should always have the decisive say! Anyone who wants to follow Jesus must practice this for a lifetime: that Jesus always has the decisive word which determines one's behaviour. In this way, one will never find oneself in a situation that one will later regret. "He who would come after me, let him deny himself."
"And take up his cross," Jesus continues. This is a further concretization, a further elaboration of what has just been said. A heavy word! Suffering, pain, bloody sweat, humiliation are attached to it... And it does mean something like that. There are two senses in which a man may have a cross: one is that which life itself puts upon him; the other is that which the fact of following Christ puts upon him. So there is a broader cross and a narrower cross. In a broad sense, every man has his own cross - as they say. Indeed: every man has his own cross. In the broader sense, the cross is something that is not in one's life as one would have liked it to be, as one imagined it to be. Something that is fated to turn out differently than we expected, hoped for, wished for. Let me just give you a few brief examples from the pastoral diary. What a cross! Many old people have such crosses! - Or, for example, a widening gap between people who should be dependent on each other, who should belong together: between spouses, or between parents and children. They do not understand each other. It's as if they were speaking a different language! We can't imagine how many people are crushed under the cross of a broken, joyless family life! - Or the ever-painful cross of a public figure with a brilliant talent and a great career, for example, whose only son is crippled! - Or, for example, I knew someone who had spent a lifetime of hard work trying to achieve the goal he had set for himself in his career, and who never achieved it because of unfair and undeserved neglect. This man suffered silently under this cross... The apostle Paul's life was also weighed down by a cross of some kind, that particular thorn he speaks of in Corinthians, probably the constant irritating pain of some incurable disease. Something that weighs him down, something that is hard to bear, something that causes suffering, something that life has imposed on him. It goes with mere life!
But in a narrower sense, the cross is a symbol of the suffering that following Christ imposes on the believer, that is, what comes from being a disciple of Christ. A truly serious following of Christ can sometimes have unpleasant, painful consequences. The cross in the narrow sense is the disadvantage, the neglect, the ridicule, the scorn, the unpopularity or abuse that one's faith brings one in the public eye, in one's environment. Such has always been and always will be the case as long as there is a consistent Christian in the world!
Now the question is, what should one do with one's cross? Well, you can try to shake it off, throw it down. "I can't stand it any longer," someone said the other day, "I'll upset my whole family life!" That's how he wanted to get rid of his cross! But that's not the solution! - You can try to escape from it, for example, into the oblivious intoxication of alcohol. In most alcoholics' lives, it sooner or later turns out that they have drifted into such a tragic escape because of some kind of cross. Some people fall into the pressure of their cross, rebel against it, curse it, have a nervous breakdown, end up in hospital, become pessimistic or resignedly surrender. There are those who outwardly, seemingly deny Jesus in order to free themselves from the cross of unpleasant consequences that comes with it. But it is in vain, because he will no longer believe it anyway! What does Jesus say? "Take up his cross!" This "take up his cross" does not mean to settle down, to take care of it, but to take it! Accept it! Take it up! Just as one accepts an assignment, or a job - or a gift! Yes, so take it! As a task, a job, a commission - a gift! Because the cross is! Or it can become one.
That is why Jesus says: "Take up your cross and follow me." That is, in following Jesus, that cross becomes a wonderful great task, an opportunity - a gift in one's life! In following Christ, the cross that one "puts on": miraculously, it does not crush one, but lifts one up! It does not make you pessimistic, but better. In following Christ, the cross becomes a blessing for us, a burden that enriches our lives, balances our lives. A very old but very true metaphor is the example of the pearl shell: that is, when a stimulating grain of sand is placed in its shell, it is encrusted with pearls. Its sorrow, its pain, becomes a shining pearl. So it is in the following of Christ: from the pain of the cross, character, tolerance, understanding love are forged. Yes: whoever takes up his cross and follows Jesus in this way not only bears his burden but also benefits from it. He wears it and is changed under it!
From the cross of Jesus, power, light and salvation have been poured out on the whole world. That is why your cross can be an opportunity, a means for you to be redeemed and to lift others up. If you connect any cross in your life with Jesus, blessings can always flow from this connection for you and for others! Let us not be afraid, then, for Jesus calls us to the richest, fullest life when he says: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
Amen!
Date: 15 November 1964.