The story of Jesus’ life is wonderful enough but the central, vital purpose of his time on earth is his death. Each event in the gospels points this way, even from the time when the Magi brought the strange gift of myrrh (2:11), sometimes used for embalming a corpse (but also a symbol of joy! See Song of Songs 3:6; 5:5). Notice the inevitability in verses 21 to 23: Jesus must go to Jerusalem; he must be killed (v 21). 

At this stage, the disciples had no clear idea what their Lord meant by ‘raised to life’. Death is what registers with Peter (v 22). Like us, he seems to have days when he is more and then less in tune with God! However, this does not excuse Peter’s attempt to undermine Christ’s purpose. My first thought was relief that it was him and not me who received that sharp, frightening rebuke (v 23). But wait: the rest of Jesus’ teaching here is addressed not to the twelve but to all of us – and now he is talking about our life and death, not his. If we want to be followers of Jesus, we must give up our lives (v 25). If we choose not to believe in him, then our very souls will be lost (v 26). 

‘The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.’¹

Perhaps the main challenge of today’s passage is to realise that following Jesus means conflict with ease and comfort. That could mean suffering and hardship (vs  21–23), self-denial – and even forfeiting one’s life (vs 24–26). It could mean facing the unbelief of those who refuse to accept that Jesus is the Messiah, Saviour and Lord, even when we want to share the gospel with them. This was probably not what the disciples wanted to hear, but what they needed to accept as the cost of following Jesus. There is a battle to fight and a calling to share in their Lord’s suffering – but also to share in his victory (vs 24,18).

What sort of Christian life is presented by the church today? One wonders if the challenge of these verses is often sidelined and the note of spiritual struggle which Jesus presents is absent. Yet this is the mark of authentic Christianity. As George Duffield’s 1858 hymn puts it, ‘Stand up, stand up for Jesus, / ye soldiers of the Cross … where duty calls, or danger, / be never wanting there.’ 

This chapter underlines that followers of Christ are not to be passive observers of their Lord and what he does. As WD Davies and Dale C Allison wrote in Matthew – a Shorter Commentary: ‘They are not to be seated spectators watching from the grandstand the actions foretold in verses 21–23.’² Rather, the call to follow our Lord is clear: ‘Discipleship is a doing of what is right, no matter how irksome the privations, no matter how great the dangers.’² As we read later in the New Testament, faith without works is dead,³ so let us echo the cry ‘Yet not as I will, but as you will’.⁴

‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’5 How do I respond to that?

¹ D Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, SCM, 2001, p151  ² Davies and Allison, T&T Clark, 2004, p278  ³ James 2:17  ⁴ Matt 26:39  ⁵ Bonhoeffer, p44