There is no flight to Calvary; we must walk the road.

Have you ever tried to skip ahead in a story?

Maybe you've flipped to the last chapter of a novel, hoping to find out how everything resolves without enduring the tension of the middle. Or perhaps you've fast-forwarded through the difficult scenes of a movie to get to the triumphant ending.

We do this instinctively at times because we want the resolution without the ache.

But if you skip ahead to the victory at the end of a novel or the climax of a movie, it loses its power.

It is only in going through the trial, through the suffering that a story’s hero or heroine endures, that we truly understand the profundity of their victory.

Without the weight of the struggle, the triumph feels hollow. We want Easter morning without Good Friday. We may recognize we need the cross, but we want to get there without the agony of Gethsemane, without enduring the mockery and rejection, without carrying the heavy burden of the cross on the road of Calvary. We want the empty tomb without the borrowed one.

Most of us, if we are honest, approach our spiritual lives the same way. We know, at least in theory, that following Jesus involves the cross. We’ve heard the sermons. We’ve underlined the verses. We acknowledge that discipleship is costly.

But there is a subtle and persistent temptation to reduce the cross to a single moment of surrender rather than a sustained journey through suffering. We want to leap from conviction to resurrection without walking the full road that Jesus Himself walked. Luke's Gospel will not let us do that.

 

The Context We Often Miss

In Luke 9:23, Jesus speaks one of the most quoted sentences in all of Scripture: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23, NRSV).

These words are so familiar to many Christians that they can wash over us without impact, like a song we've heard so many times we no longer notice the lyrics. But the verse that immediately precedes this invitation changes everything about how we should understand it.

Look at what Jesus says just one breath earlier: "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" (Luke 9:22).

This is the first explicit passion prediction in Luke's Gospel, and it is not a throwaway line. It is the interpretive lens through which the call of verse 23 must be read.

To take up your cross, means to embrace the entire path He took to get there, the path He tells us to follow Him through. You may recognize the importance of the cross, maybe you wear a cross or a crucifix, you gaze on it in deep reflection. But Jesus doesn't teleport us to Golgotha. He doesn't "beam us up" to the foot of the cross.

He walks the path, and tells us to join him the entire way there.

Jesus does not issue a general invitation to endure hardship; He describes, with startling specificity, the shape of His own suffering, and then He says: Follow me.

Notice the sequence Jesus lays out. He must undergo great suffering. He must be rejected. He must be killed. And then, only then, He will be raised.

There is a road that leads to Golgotha, and that road passes through real places of agony before it reaches the hill. To take up one's cross daily is not merely to arrive at the moment of crucifixion. It is to walk the entire Via Dolorosa, starting long before the nails.

 

Beginning in the Garden

If we take Jesus at His word, then the journey of the cross begins not on Calvary but in Gethsemane.

It begins in the dark garden where Jesus fell on His face and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).

This is arguably the most agonizing prayer ever uttered, because it is not the prayer of someone who does not feel the weight of what is being asked. It is the prayer of someone who feels it completely and still surrenders.

Luke tells us something that no other Gospel writer includes. He says that "his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground" (Luke 22:44).

The surrender of one's will to the Father's will is not a casual decision.

It costs something. It costs everything.

Real surrender hurts, because it means subjecting all our hopes, all our worldly dreams, even our deepest desires to His will. Would you be willing to sacrifice your dreams to follow Him?

It's counter-cultural. It's hard to swallow. Because we live in a world that tells us to follow our dreams, but rarely bids us to follow Christ. We are told, from a young age, that all our dreams can come true. We buy self-help books and sit through motivational seminars so we can achieve everything we've ever wanted. A good reputation, a "happy life," success and even wealth.

Are you ready to surrender all of that? It's a big ask, I get it. But the irony of it all is that Jesus tells us quite clearly, "For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits his soul?" (v. 25).

How many people with a great reputation in today's world still suffer agonizing depression? How many people are wealthy, famous, and loved by men, but fall to addiction? Look at the celebrities of our day, even our powerful politicians. How many of them have real joy? There's more joy in many third-world villages than there is in Hollywood or on Wallstreet. There is more joy and contentment among the saints, many of whom renounced the world and lived lives in prayer, poverty, and in sacrificial love, than you'll find in Washington D.C.

Our dreams and hopes might come on the climb up a hill, but real hope is not found on Capital Hill. Real joy won't be realized in Beverly Hills.

It comes through Calvary. Through the garden, through the rejection, through the entire path that leads to Golgotha.

This is where the daily cross begins for us. Before we can deal with our sins, our wounds, our deeply rooted patterns of brokenness, we must first come to the place where we say, with full awareness of what it will cost, "Not my will but yours."

This is not a one-time prayer; Jesus said we must take up the cross daily, which means we must pray this prayer daily. Every morning, we face the same garden. Every morning, we face the same cup. And every morning, we are invited to drink it. Every day we must surrender our worldly dreams and hopes, and subject them to a hope that will not end with our personal graves, but one that will pass through the tomb with Him.

Gethsemane is the place where we stop negotiating.

The road to the Cross always begins with surrender. Not my will, but thine.

It means relinquishing control. That's hard to do. It's really hard to do. But that's where the call to follow begins.

 

Through the Scourging and Mockery

But the road does not end in the garden. Jesus said He must undergo great suffering and be rejected. After Gethsemane comes the trial, the scourging, and the cruel reality of mockery.

After the surrender of the will comes the painful process of being stripped, exposed, and disciplined.

There is a dimension of the spiritual life that we rarely talk about in an age that prizes comfort: penance.

Not punishment, but penance.

In Lent, we practice penance through three Biblical disciplines: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. In prayer, we learn to put to death the idol of pride, of control, of ego. We put all things in His hands. In fasting, we learn to put to death the appetites of the body, the lust, the gluttony, the addiction. In almsgiving, we learn to let go of our false-securities, the love of money, and the sense of personal entitlement.

The way of the cross isn't about enduring the wrath of a cruel God. Penance isn't suffering for suffering's sake. It's not punishment, but the loving correction of a Father who is forming us into the image of His Son.

The author of Hebrews writes, "The Lord disciplines those whom he loves" (Hebrews 12:6).

This discipline is not evidence of God's anger. It is evidence of His commitment to our transformation. To follow Jesus through the scourging means to accept that the process of becoming holy often hurts.

Consider the crown of thorns. Consider the mockery from those who jeered at him, who stripped him naked, who dressed him in robes as if to make fun of his claim to kingship. What they didn't realize was that the crown the gave him was more glorious than any crown of gold and jewels. It was a real crown, worn by a real king, who accepted a throne that had been reserved for the worst of criminals, who carried and endured the cross.

There was nothing sentimental about a Roman cross. The Romans often made fun of the Christians for embracing a crucified man as God, just as they'd made fun of Jesus' claim of kingship. But Jesus calls us to follow, even here.

Why does it hurt so much when people make fun at us, or mock us? Every child knows what it feels like, because every child has been poked fun at, and some more than others. It's because we all desire, at the core of who we are, to be loved.

When someone mocks us, what we hear is, "you're unlovable."

When God exposes a hidden sin, it stings; when He strips away a comfort we have clung to as a substitute for Him, we feel naked and vulnerable.

The great suffering Jesus described is not purposeless pain. It is redemptive.

Once you realize God's love for you, the praises of men, the quest for acceptance, for approval, for a reputation, loses its luster. Why do I need to be loved by mere humans if I'm loved by their Maker, by my Creator? Why do I require the approval of men, if God has approved of me already, for Christ's sake?

Jesus didn't endure to cross because the Father was angry, and needed to dump his wrath on someone. He endured the cross, and the Father sent him to the cross, because of His unwavering, unshakable, determined love for you. It was love, not wrath, that sent Jesus to the cross. He didn't merely let Jesus suffer what you deserve, He sent Jesus to suffer what we truly do deserve alongside us, with us, so that any suffering we endure wouldn't be suffered alone. We might have to endure the trials of this life without a lot of people beside us, though the beauty of the Church is that Christ has united many to His body, but we'll never have to endure it alone. He walks ahead of us, alongside us, and he bears the heavier burden. All he says is, "follow me," which is to say, "stick by my side and I'll see you through."

How often do we pray that God would remove our trials, fix our sinful habits, or spare us of suffering? Sometimes he answers those prayers. He might shield us from more suffering than He knows we can endure. Though, more often than not, He gives us a better answer to those prayers: I am with you always. I'm right here. I'm carrying the cross, and the heavy burden is mine. Follow me, and your burden will be light.

When we unite our own suffering to His, when we allow our small agonies to be joined to His great agony, something mysterious and beautiful happens. Our suffering begins to bear fruit. Paul understood this when he wrote, "I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Colossians 1:24).

Our suffering, united to Christ's, participates in the redemptive work of God in the world.

 

The Rejection and Abandonment We Must Endure

Jesus also said He would be rejected.

This is perhaps the most overlooked element of the passion prediction, and yet it speaks directly to one of our deepest fears.

To follow Jesus faithfully will, at times, mean being misunderstood, marginalized, or dismissed. It will mean that the values of the Kingdom will put us at odds with the values of the culture, and sometimes even with the values of people we love.

The rejection Jesus experienced was not incidental. It was essential to the shape of His mission. He was rejected by the very religious leaders who should have recognized Him. He was abandoned by friends who had promised loyalty. One of them even betrayed him. Have you ever been abandoned or betrayed? You are not alone.

He endured the sting of mockery—the public humiliation of being made a laughingstock for His truth.

To take up one's cross daily means being willing to stand in places of isolation for the sake of faithfulness.

It means trusting that the Father's purposes are being accomplished even when every external indicator suggests otherwise.

 

Losing to Find

After describing the full arc of His suffering. Remember again these words: "What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?" (Luke 9:25).

This question hangs in the air of every decision we make. Every time we choose comfort over obedience, approval over faithfulness, or control over surrender, we are making a transaction.

The paradox at the heart of the gospel is this: "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:24).

The life we cling to so desperately is not the life God has for us. The identity we construct, the security we build, the reputation we protect—all of these must pass through death before they can be raised into something new. There is no shortcut. There is no way to skip from Gethsemane to the empty tomb.

But here is the promise hidden inside the pain: the third day comes.

 

The Sorrowful Mysteries

For centuries, Christians have meditated on these specific stages of Christ’s passion through what are known as the Sorrowful Mysteries.

These are not merely historical events to be observed from a distance; they are a map of the spiritual life.

Jesus invites us to unite our personal sorrowful mysteries to His.

We are called to do more than just put our sin to death at the cross—though that is crucial. We are invited to unite our agonizing surrender of our will, our "thy will be done," our abandonment issues, and our penance to His own. All our rejection, all the mockery we endure, he suffers with us.

When we carry our crosses beside Him, the yoke becomes light because He is walking the road with us. He is in the garden with us, He stands at the judgment before men with us, he suffers their jeers and taunts, and He carries His cross alongside us.

Ultimately, He dies with us so that we might live.

It begins with Gethsemane. Before your feet hit the floor, you pray the prayer that costs everything: "Not my will, but yours."

It continues with honesty. You stop hiding from the areas of your life where God's discipline is at work. You receive the "lashings" that Jesus did, even while you're chained to the pillar and can't run away. You stop running from the exposure of your sin, hiding your truth out of fear of rejection or that someone might make fun of you. Instead, you turn toward it.

You bring your sins out into the light, you admit them, you confess them, and they lose their power. You allow your wounds to be exposed, and you press your wounds into His.

Whenever my children get a cut, they demand a band-aid. It doesn't matter how small the cut is. Even if it isn't bleeding. They want and band-aid. But sometimes I have to tell them, while the band-aid has a purpose, sometimes the band-aid prevents healing. Sometimes the wound needs fresh air to breathe, to really heal.

Examine the wounds in your heart, in your soul. Have you been bandaging them up all these years? Have you allowed those wounds to fester because you'd rather cover it up with a band-aid, hide it away, than allow it truly heal? In Jesus, you can expose those wounds safely. He will purify you. He will heal you.

"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

How do we bring out our wounds, how do we give them to Christ that they would be healed? We don't skip past Gethsemane, we don't avoid whatever scourging at the pillar or penance we must endure, we face whatever mockery or rejection might be in either our past, our present, or our future. We follow Christ all the way, for in the entirety of His sorrowful mysteries, in His passion from start-to-finish, He is ready to heal you.

Carry your cross beside him, and notice how much lighter it becomes. Endure your rejection and the jeers of men at His side, and the words of others will lose their sting.

Accept seasons of misunderstanding and mockery without retreating into bitterness or self-pity.

Remember that Jesus walked this road before you, and that rejection is not the end of the story.

Hold loose to everything except God Himself. Your plans, your reputation, your comfort, your very life.

The cross is not a moment; it is a road. He suffered many things, and He bids us to follow. 

And Jesus is not waiting for you at the end of the road of your personal Calvary. He is walking ahead of you, every step of the way, turning back to say the same words He spoke to His first disciples: Follow me.

And when you stumble, when you fall, when you feel like you can't go any further... allow Him to carry you, to embrace you. In carrying His cross, He carries you, too. When was the last time you were truly carried by someone? In his pierced Hands, his extended cruciform arms, he envelops you. When was the last time you were truly held?

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30).

This is not a separate invitation from "take up your cross daily and follow me." It is one and the same invitation, and in His sorrowful mystery, you will find your sorrows melt into His. You will find an easy yoke, a light burden. You will find healing and rest. 

We know the third day is coming. But today, we walk.