Seven miles east of Wisdom, Montana. Summer 2023.
I’d like to share a few thoughts this morning about these verses from Luke:
“…great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.’” Luke 14:25-26 (ESV)
Did he really just say hate?
There is simply no getting around the fact that this is a very hard word from our Lord. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s not harsh. Look, as always, it is decidedly not the case that what Jesus says to us wasn’t thought through very well, or that it was uttered in anger or with malice.
The word is meant to stop us our tracks.
If we believe that Jesus wants us to despise those who by blood and marriage are closest to us, to turn and suddenly desire bad things to happen to our loved ones, frankly, we haven’t at all been paying very close attention. And it should also be readily apparent that, no, we are not being called to actively seek our own demise. Both would be quite unnatural. And wrong.
But it is true that Jesus is asking us here to do something unnatural: He is asking us to put him first. This is about inordinate loves, of putting good things ahead of the most important thing.
He does, however, want us to understand the very real possibility that in putting him first, we might very well lose our wife, our children, our brothers and sisters. And yes, even our own lives.
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25 (ESV)