Luke 14:25-27 25Now great crowds were going with him, and turning he said to them, 26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and in addition his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me is not able to be my disciple.
Luke describes a new scene, with Jesus now out on the road traveling to Jerusalem and the cross that awaited him there. Many people were following him. Their motive is not given in this passage, but we can imagine the many reasons people were following him, including curiosity and seeking his help. Verses 26-27 and the story that follows suggest that they had not really considered what being Jesus’ disciple actually means. They were casual followers, interested but not fully committed.
Jesus leaves no doubt in these verses what this commitment would require. He gives a wide open invitation to anyone. Comes to me indicates the source of salvation. If anyone wants the eternal life he had been preaching, these are the conditions. The challenge is that the conditions Jesus gives are difficult to consider. Three conditions are presented with the verbs hate, bear, and come.
The verb hate (misei) needs careful interpretation based on Jesus’ teaching. In a parallel passage in Matthew 10:37, the word would be parallel to “love less.” Hate here is not the emotional rejection of something but a lesser form of love. The Bible clearly says that we must love our family and honor our parents. The people Jesus lists in this verse are those closest to us, those that we know best and have the closest relationship. The bond of family is strong in most situations. The best place to understand the meaning of love is in the family. Yet, this family love should pale in comparison to the love we have for Jesus. Only when we love him can we learn how to love others. Even loving one’s life is not as significant as loving Jesus. Our innate drive is to preserve ourselves. This form of self love cannot replace the call to come to Jesus.
The second condition of carrying one’s cross echoes 9:23-24. The people of Judea were familiar with Roman crosses. There were places where criminals were hung along the road side or in prominent places like Golgotha outside Jerusalem. Such executions were cruel and a strong form of deterrent. The disciples and crowds may not have understood the significance of this saying at this point but would come to understand it more after Jesus carried his own cross. To bear one’s cross at this early point would have brought to mind the final walk people would make toward their execution. They would pay the ultimate price for their crime (if indeed they were guilty). Following Jesus requires paying the same total price of one’s self.
The third condition puts a positive perspective on things and echoes the first, forming a ABA pattern. Come after means to follow. Those who go to Jesus must make the decision to follow where he leads. It is not enough to come to Jesus out of curiosity. That is the important first step. But we must make the decision to go where he goes and do what he does. To come after means that we are not in charge. We follow directions and seek the will of the Master. We can only do that by humbly submitting ourselves to the guidance of the Master. Submission is difficult for us because of our selfishness and perspective locked into the world around us. We must shift our vision from the earthly and mundane to the heavenly and crucial.
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