This mention of a cross is the second such mention in the Gospel of Luke. We find the first mention of a cross in the ninth chapter, when Jesus says “If anyone wants to become My follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me” (9:23). We hear Jesus first speaking of a cross in the context of discipleship. With this, we also find Him speaking of the “kingdom of God” (9:27b). Again, because of our familiarity with the cross, and our speaking and thinking of it in terms of that which represents the love of God in Christ, we miss out on the drama to be found in these words. Because of our distant removal from the realities of what the cross was in that day, we are de-sensitized to its horror, its profound shock to the sensibilities, and the effect that the mere mention of a cross was designed to produce among those who would be in a position to witness the gruesome reality that it was.
That de-sensitization causes us to become more wrapped up in the “scandalous” words that accompany Jesus’ mention of the cross here in the fourteenth chapter of Luke, when He says, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (14:26). We struggle with the import of these words without even realizing the dynamic and pervasive family structures that were at play in His own day, making family relationships perhaps even more important and essential than we sometimes consider them to be in our own time.
Coupling our struggle with these words (and Jesus’ hearers no doubt struggled with them as well) with our unfortunate familiarity and comfort with the message of the cross, we are not nearly cognizant enough of the fact that Jesus’ words that followed, which were “Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple” (14:27), as Jesus repeats and elaborates on words previously spoken, would have been the source of even greater consternation among His hearers. They would have been taken aback at Jesus speaking this way, as a general feeling of the day was that, due to the horror of crucifixion, one did not discuss the cross in polite company. There is indeed much to be heard by those that have ears to hear.
With all of this, let us not forget that Jesus speaks these words of the demands of discipleship, of the cross, and even of the renouncing of family and one’s own possessions (14:33), in the context of presenting His thoughts concerning the kingdom of God. How do we know this? It is because “one of those at the meal with Jesus… said to Him, ‘Blessed is everyone who will feast in the kingdom of God!’” (14:15) Upon hearing this, Jesus launches into a parable of a man that gave a great banquet (14:16), doing so while at a banquet (14:1). So Jesus, while at a meal, tells parables presenting His thoughts and ideals concerning the kingdom of heaven, while also imploring His listeners to have ears to hear what it is that He is communicating to them.
Jesus’ presence at meals or banquets is a regular feature of the record of the Gospels. The fact of their regular occurrence indicates their importance to Jesus, and the fact that the authors of the Gospels make it a point to provide regular references to these events is an indication that it was of some importance in the early church as they sought to manifest the ideals of the kingdom of God that had been inaugurated with the Resurrection of Jesus. We would be doing ourselves a tremendous disservice if we did not attach great weight to the rather detailed articulations concerning Jesus’ meals. Much happens in accordance with these meals, which aids in accounting for why, as an aid to the sacramental symbolism of the kingdom of heaven that will be provided to and by “the last supper,” the meals of the early church took on such significance.
Taking the Gospels accounts in canonical order, the first time we encounter Jesus at a meal is the ninth chapter of Matthew. There, directly after summoning a tax collector named Matthew to follow Him, we find that “Jesus was having a meal in Matthew’s house” (9:10a), and that “many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Jesus and His disciples” (9:10b). This formed the basis for the rather accurate charge that Jesus engaged in this practice, which would grow into a polemic that would be used by His opponents during His lifetime, as well as an out of context, misused, and improperly understood justification for the activities of Christians. Speaking to the latter, Jesus’ eating with “sinners” must be understood in accordance with the perceptions and expectations of His day, especially in accordance with His messiah-like presentation of Himself, and to how His doing so spoke directly to His manifestation of the kingdom of God that He represented.
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