Walking Toward the Cross
“Your destination will determine your life direction. Jesus was a man on a mission. He was a person with a purpose. Are you? Let me ask you: Where are you headed? Do you have a goal? Do you have a purpose?” – Tony Walliser
Read Mark 10:32-34
Walking Toward the Cross
Can you imagine being a murderer on death row, making a final, slow, inevitable walk toward the place of execution. Capital punishment is a controversial topic, but regardless of your views on the issue, try putting yourself in the place of someone who knows that within hours – or even minutes – he’ll be taking his final breath.
We don’t like to dwell on it, but in a similar way this was Jesus approaching Jerusalem for the last time, knowing the Jewish priests and religious leaders were awaiting His arrival. They were scheming to have Him killed, thinking that would eliminate His threat to their positions and authority.
Thinking about Jesus, we typically picture Him in several ways: As a baby lying in a manger. Speaking boldly to crowds constantly gathering around Him. Being on the cross, shedding His blood to atone for our sins. Or, appearing to His followers three days after being crucified and buried, demonstrating His victory over death.
But how often do we wonder what it must have been like for Jesus to approach Jerusalem, walking and then riding a donkey into the city, greeted by adoring crowds that soon would turn on Him and scream their approval for His execution? It’s painful to consider that had we been there, we might have been among those shouting, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
The amazing thing is, Jesus knew with certainty what would happen to Him after arriving in Jerusalem. In fact, several times He explained it to His disciples, although they seemed clueless about what He meant. Nevertheless, Jesus never wavered. As He declared to the disciples, “Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour” (John 12:27).
In a sense, the walk to Jerusalem might have been as painful for Jesus – at least emotionally – as dying on the cross. The very people He had come to save were about to pronounce His death sentence. He was fulfilling the ancient prophecy that said,
“I offered my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.
Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.” (Isaiah 50:6-7)
What are we to make of this? On one hand we can rejoice and feel thankful, knowing the Lord Jesus went through so much to redeem us and offer forgiveness for our sins. But did you know that He invites us to join Him on “death row”?
Maybe not in a literal, physical sense, but Jesus clearly stated what it means to be one of His followers: “Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for Me will save it’” (Luke 9:23-24).
Years later the apostle Paul would make the assertion, “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31). He wasn’t referring to the many occasions during his ministry when his own life seemed hanging in the balance, but to the crucial importance of dying to self – to his own desires, ambitions, even his own fears.
Like Jesus, Paul had “set his face like flint,” focused on nothing other than fulfilling the mission God had given him. How about you? Are you willing to follow the Lord, no matter what? Even if it means sacrificing comfort, convenience, even your own dreams?