When we invite people to church, we tend not to lead with this passage. It's a hard teaching. The cross has lost much of its meaning in a world where the Roman empire is no longer crucifying people by the thousands (thankfully!). But imagine the reaction of the crowd when Jesus tells them that they are invited to take up their cross daily. No one would have been excited about that, and you can't really take up a cross more than once. And yet here is Jesus, inviting the crowd to find their life through losing it, to find salvation through sacrifice.
Are we willing to trust that the God of creation has our best interests in mind, that the God who feeds the crowd out of abundance will care for our every need? It's a hard step to take, given that so much in the world is about protecting ourselves from shortages and working to secure ourselves from losing anything. But Jesus has a vision for more than this world has, and he sees us as children handcrafted in the image of God. He knows us completely and loves us completely. He can do impossibly more than we can ask or imagine, and he's coming again in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
Knowing that... what do you imagine it means to die to yourself daily, to lose your life daily so that you may find it?
