Sunday, March 1: Jim & Rachel Clifton

Mark 8:34. [Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Jesus says that following him will involve denying ourselves and taking up our “cross” and following him. So what does that mean to us followers in the 21st century who live our lives in relative ease and comfort? To those in Jesus day, there is no doubt, as they passed by crosses lining the avenues and crossroads in the Roman Empire, that the cross was all about suffering, humiliation and an agonizing death. They probably weren’t falling over each other to sign up for “taking up their cross.” But as we know, they did exactly that, and here we are today as Christ followers with a history and a legacy of their faith. Will we be called to suffer as those early disciples? Probably not in the same way, but we can begin by responding to God where he is personally and individually speaking to us.

All of us are in the process of learning what it means to deny ourselves in what we might sometimes consider to be our rights—anger, resentment, self-indulgence, pride. We desire to move toward others in forgiveness, compassion, empathy, time and resources—all a journey of self-denial of sorts. Let us begin to pray that God will help us to do what he did for us in Christ when he entered into the sufferings of this world. In our families, in our neighborhood, and beyond our safe community and relationships, we can come alongside others and help them to carry their burdens. Jesus knew that denying ourselves to live in the larger context of his kingdom would change us from the inside out and would begin to conform us to his own image. In Philippians we read: “Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but made himself nothing—he took the humble position of a servant and appeared in human form.”

Let’s make that our joyful prayer together in this Lenten season – that in learning to deny ourselves, we can open ourselves up to live into the very life of God in us.                                   

  —Jim & Rachel Clifton