Back Again

I've always been curious about the expression "taking the cross" as found in Matthew 10. This seems on the surface to be a prediction of Jesus about his own demise. It also seems to be a prediction about being forced to physically carry part of the cross prior to crucifiction.

Other than this strange statement, does Jesus in Matthew appear to be aware of the upcoming details of his own death? Would we expect the disciples or anyone listening ot have any clue as to what he is talking about? Is it possible that "taking a cross" was an existing expression with origins that may or may not have had anything to do with crucifiction and that Jesus later dragging his own cross was a kind of irony? Is it possible that taking ones cross was from some pre-existing collection of sayings of Jesus and was an explicit reference to future crucifiction and Matthew simply tucked it here in the narrative.

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this and parallel synoptic passages.

show_no_mercy

From what I remember, crucifixion victims (not just Jesus) had to carry their own crosses to their laborious execution during the Roman era. The entire point of crucifixion was humiliation, and carrying your own torture stick would have added to it. In other words, this would have been common[ish] knowledge when Matthew wrote.

Back Again

Well, all of us knew the end of the story before we read this passage. Likewise, the author of Matthew knew the end of the story as he was writing this passage. What's not obvious to me is that Jesus (as portrayed in the story) would be expected to know the end of the story...ie a Roman execution. It would seem even more unlikely that his audience would immediately connect leaving family and possessions behind to follow a cult leader to a real or metaphorical execution at the hands of the Romans. Taking a cross is not a good metaphor for being persecuted by fellow jews or stoned as blasphemers

Perhaps I'm looking at this wrong. Is the point of the chapter that Jesus "thinks" that he will be the expected Jewish messiah, in other words a military leader? Is this chapter a call to arms for his followers in a revolution? If so, then the statements about crucifiction makes sense. Is Matthew's Jesus deceived here or is he deceiving his followers?...or is this just bad writing by the author of Matthew?

bacht

Maybe the cross was already part of the tradition, and the gospel writers concretized it into crucifixion?

storytime

Jesus is setting the division between Jew and Jew. Loyalty to his name, they should take up their cross[reason] and follow him leaving their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers behind. "Leave the dead to bury their dead". The cause was greater in its perceived new world order.

What was the reason behind the cause of Christ? To avoid physical death ("O death where is thy sting, Grave where is thy victory") at the hands of those Jews that Jesus saw as the "accusers" of the brethren, namely, the Pharisees. Inflicting death on innocents per their own doctrine that Jesus declared was "of the devil", in that "ye teach for doctrine the commandments of men."

Back Again

To complicate this further, we can look at the parallel taking up the cross text in Luke 14. Luke doesn't read like a call to arms the way Matthew does. The cross metaphor makes even less sense here if it really is a reference to crucifiction.

Let me assert that the authors of Matthew and Luke had this saying attributed to Jesus from an earier work that, perhaps, did not contain a sequential narrative. Both authors inserted this saying (in convenient locations within their narratives) as a foreshadowing the the future crucifiction at the hands of the Romans. Let me also assert that the saying doesn't make good sense within the narratives given that the characters in the stories don't yet know how the story will end.

Imagine Santa in the beginning of the Rudolp story saying, "Always be nice to reindeer with noses that light up because the future of Christmas could depend on it." That line might not seem absurd to the reader at all who is already well familiar with how the story ends. Within the story however would we not expect the other reindeer listening to Santa to ask WTF?

brianscott1977

If we assume that Matthew is accurate then Jesus did know in advance how he would die and rise from the dead. He slowly reveals this to his disciples (16:21, 17:9, 17:22-23). The most explicit statement is 20:18-19, where Jesus says, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”

I do not think 10:38 is meant to be a prediction of his death. When Jesus says “take up his cross” he is referring to the practice of a condemned man carrying the cross bar to his own execution – as shownomercy said, this was a symbol of humiliation and suffering. Jesus is commanding his followers to do this in a spiritual way – to put to death our own desires and selfishness and self-centeredness so that we can fully serve God and help those in need.

As far as I am aware Jesus was not referring back to any earlier traditions. Crucifixion, being the most horrible form of mass execution ever devised, was not something many people wanted to associate themselves with.

Back Again

While I agree with your analysis of the verses, the phrase "take up your cross" has to have a sound metaphorical meaning to the listening audience (not us) or it's a post Christianity anachronism. If it made sense to the audience, it had either be a) a well known phrase meaning take your punishment or take your burden or b) be something the audience could figure out based on a known fact that a religious cult leader could run the risk of roman (not jewish) execution. I'm saying that I have no evidence for a) and that b) might be a bit of a stretch.