Thursday after Ash Wednesday, March 3: "Come and die"

If you missed the introduction to Lent devotions, and would like to read it, you can either scroll down or go to: https://www.storymakerlife.com/lent-2022-introduction.html  

Prepare to Listen.  Be still and silent, conscious of being in God’s presence.  Pray: Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes, and I will observe it to the end.
 
Prayerfully Read Luke 9:18-24
18Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’  19They answered, ‘John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.’  20He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’  Peter answered, ‘The Messiah of God.’  21He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, 22saying, ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’  23Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  24For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.
 
Prayerfully Wonder
“But who do you say that I am?”  The question wasn’t directed at the unevangelized masses, but at the few who were already committed to following him.  Which means, it’s the question you and I, who claim to be followers of Jesus, must answer.  And we must get it right.
 
The problem is, we often don’t get Jesus right, instead defining him according to what we want him to be.  When Peter answered, correctly, “The Messiah of God,” it didn’t mean he could now determine how Jesus should act and be Messiah.  In the few years he’d been following Jesus, all his expectations about Messiah had been shattered.  Jesus wasn’t the Messiah he expected.  Peter had to learn, as Craddock notes, “To believe the Messiah has come means we can no longer shape him to fit our dreams; he shapes us to fit God’s will.”[1]  This is precisely what Jesus did, demanding that those who follow him “deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  Jesus took up a cross and went to die.  While we won’t do this literally, it is a call, as Bonhoeffer claimed, to come and die.
 
As we journey through Lent with Luke’s Gospel, we’ll learn more of what it means to deny self and take up our cross, that is, come and die.
 
Prayerfully Reflect
Who do you say Jesus is?  How prepared are you to come and die?
 
Respond to Jesus
Lord, forgive me when I try to create you into an image I’m comfortable with.  Keep showing me yourself and give me the grace and courage to follow you and not my image of you.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Be willing to take up your cross.
[1] Craddock, Fred B.  Luke.  Louisville, KY. 1990, p. 127.