When Jesus was crucified he did not simply suffer physical pain. He suffered humiliation, ignominy, atrocity, rejection. He was rejected by the very people He came to save. Every person in the world irrespective of their position, cultural heritage or situation wishes to be acknowledged. Jesus was not acknowledged. If we leave aside Isaiah 53 what would the implication of His words be when He prayed to God to forgive those who did not realize what they were doing?
Jesus was a radical. His doctrine conformed to the beliefs of the Prophets who had come before Him, who had been tortured, sawed in half, killed for the simple reason that they adhered to the Torah in the original form. They refused to accept adulteration in God's word. Jesus continued the tradition with one exception. He preached the fulfillment of the Word of God. Radicalization accredited to Jesus was very organized. His every argument supported by the infallible doctrine of the Torah and the words of the Prophets.
The Jews knew God to be a God of Judgment, Fear. Jesus challenged their conception when He presented God as a God of Mercy and Love. Jesus takes center stage in a Jewish society suering from Roman oppression. A society, a culture is the most active when threatened by another, much more powerful social structure. The Jews of Jesus' time were no different. The fact that God the Father would have chosen such a moment to bring forth His Son is not incredible. For centuries before the coming of the Christ the stage had been preparing. The people were eagerly anticipating the coming of the future King, the Messiah that would free them from the foreign yoke.
When disciples of Jesus aligned themselves to Jesus they chose to side with the future King. Their loyalty was bribed with the promise of the twelve thrones at the side of Jesus where they would judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Their concern and dismay regarding Jesus' suffering and probable execution only tells us that they were alas human(Matthew 16:21-23). Yet Jesus chose them and Jesus embraced death for them.
I have been reminded time and again that Jesus had no hand in His crucifixion. He was betrayed by His own and sentenced with criminals. Who is to say that Jesus was not a criminal in those days? Who is to say that Jesus was not a political conspirator and thereby sentenced to death? The proof that passes on is the statements of the believers. Even the Jews that rejected Jesus as Messiah cannot help but admit that He was a prophet and not a rebel.
To those who deny the divinity of Jesus I do not place any argument because faith does not originate in debates. Faith comes from the Holy Spirit. However Jesus foreknew that He was to be betrayed. Every human instinct would have told Him to be suspicious of His disciples and followers, perhaps disappear from public life till He may feel safer. Jesus did not choose to hide and wait. He embraced the Will of His Father and if it be death so be it. Jesus demonstrated self denial by embracing His suffering.
In Matthews 16 after the confession of Simon Peter Jesus speaks of His suffering to His disciples. Simon Peter, who had just then acknowledged Jesus to be the Christ, rebuked Him for saying such ominous things about Himself. Jesus recognizes the concern in Simon Peter as not to be for Jesus or His doctrine but rather for his personal safety and well being. That is when He points out the temptation of the Devil for putting his mind in things of the earth and not of God.
In this backdrop does Jesus dictate the conditions of discipleship in clear terms! The three clear conditions are given as: a. Deny himself b. Take up his cross c. Follow me
I have struggled a lot with the concept of denying yourself. Every individual living being is endowed by material nature with a sense of self consciousness and self worth. For a great many people the greatest struggle that one faces in his entire lifetime is a validation of the self. However several religions hold aloft the idea of self denial. Many of those religions consider self denial as a penance or a discipline. In Christianity Self Denial is a basic criterion to be a follower of Jesus. Does self denial immediately put to affect the doctrine of predestination? That is however a Pandora's Box that may put to debate God's verdict of allowing mankind to be a Lord over nature.
Self denial in the Christian sense is separate from the denunciation of the asceticism of the Essenes or the Buddhists. Self denial is not so much as denial of the material world as it it the acceptance of the Will of God. The Will of God as seen by a Calvinist is the Ultimate Blueprint of Human existence. However there are some who choose to disagree. The Will of God for them is divided into two parts. One is the Absolute Will of God that takes place irrespective of whatever happens. This cannot be influenced either positively or negatively by any human intervention. But the Absolute Will of God is not all encompassing. It leaves room for choice, the free human will. By human will a person may or may not always choose the righteous path or the selfless path. That forms the measuring stick of judgment and therein the role of prayer comes in.
Prayer involves aligning of the human will to the Will of God. God has given leeway to man to control his destiny. One's own path is dictated by one's own priorities. Prayer throws light on those priorities in light of the greater things.
Jesus gives an example of the structure of how one should pray in Matthew 6:9-13, a passage made famous as the Lord's prayer. But that is not truly a prayer for the Lord or of the Lord. It is a template showing exactly what a prayer is supposed to be.
The Start of a prayer is made through praying reverence to the God. This allows a person to gain perspective to the greatness of the Lord. Thus at the beginning of starting a prayer one must remember that you are not making a bargain with someone who needs what you have. You are not sending over a groceries list to the general store to hand deliver your shopping. You are reassuring yourself the position you have in God's family as His child, His creation so that You can convince yourself that the Omnipotent,Omnipresent,Omniscient God is on your side. God need not work on your needs for His work is finished. All we need to do is align ourself to God in order to partake in the manifestation of His great works.
The second part of the prayer is acknowledgement of the daily needs that is provided for by God. Food, shelter, clothing is not a result of your hard work. Yes you have to work according to God's plan but whatever you receive is God's design, whether you receive a bagel or a roast duck, God, the Providence, provides your need. You need to humble yourself and ask the gift of God to continue in your life, to provide your needs but not your greed. God keeps you in check by providing just enough. If you go hungry God is stoking the hunger in you and is planning something greater. Work hard and earn the bread that seems so hard for you to earn. If you have more than enough God wants to test your humility. Be kind and giving.
The next part of the prayer reminds us that the forgiveness that we ask from God is not free. It is based on the condition that we submit completely to Him and as He forgives us so must we forgive others. That is our submission to His authority. That is our self denial.
The last part is the acknowledgement that the power to resist temptation from evil and the strength to remain righteous also comes from God. This is the most important part of the prayer. This is the part that is not in our control. We by the mere nature of being human cannot keep ourselves from evil. We fail to distinguish between right and wrong, between what is helpful and what is harmful to our relationship with our maker. We cannot distinguish it of our own accord. We need God's help in it. In the letter of James the apostle beseeches us to be slow to speech and quick to hear. Our speech reflects our wisdom whereas if we desist from our own understanding we can actually heed the will of God.
This completes the Lord's prayer but it's main objective is to humble yourself to freely accept God's assistance in your life. However nothing is more humbling than the realization of how much pain can a human body stand and how much pain the human Jesus must have withstood to fullfill the will of His Father, the God who loved us enough to make His Son suffer so. So it is only right that we should take up our cross as well and follow in Jesus' footsteps. But what can we do? We are sinful and we cannot deny that our sins are removed from us by the Blood of Jesus. Do we in our shame refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the true Son of God who died for our sins?
A greater part of the world does that, refuses to acknowledge the reality of the Christ and in such a way assume God to be a distant truth, inanimate in His affections towards us. That is a nihilistic lie.