Taking Up Your Cross
Here’s how German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarized the main point of the Christian life: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.”1
Bonhoeffer knew exactly what he was talking about. He lived in Germany during the troubled time when Hitler was growing more and more powerful and the dreaded Third Reich was recreating German society in its evil image.
Many pastors supported Hitler, in part because it was easier to be part of the officially approved church. But Bonhoeffer could see what many others didn’t: that Hitler was evil, and that collaboration with the Third Reich would spell doom.
Bonhoeffer was one of the leaders in the Confessing Church Movement, an underground network of churches and seminaries that tried to stay true to the message of the gospel at a time of intense pressure to cave in and compromise.
As time passed and the world came ever closer to the brink of World War II, Bonhoeffer was invited to stay in America instead of returning to the chaos and turmoil of Hitler’s Germany.
But he decided to return and suffer alongside his fellow countrymen.
Finally, Bonhoeffer joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot was uncovered, and Bonhoeffer was imprisoned in 1943.
Nazis hanged him on April 9, 1945, three days before Allied troops liberated the prison camp where he was killed.
Even before he faced death, Bonhoeffer wrote about taking up the cross in his most famous book, The Cost of Discipleship: “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church,” he wrote. “We are fighting today for costly grace.”
Bonhoeffer went on to give a more detailed description of what he meant by cheap grace: “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares.
The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolation of religion are thrown away at cut prices.
Grace is presented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!”
Today, one can find cheap grace in Christians who turn to Jesus seeking what he can do for them, not what they can do for him.
Cheap grace can also be found in sermons that emphasize “God has a wonderful plan for your life” but downplay the costs that come from true commitment.
Cheap grace can also be found when we ask Christ to grant us the power of his resurrection without enduring the pain of his crucifixion. As Bonhoeffer reminded us, “he bids [us] to come and die.”
Jesus, you went to the cross for me. Help me take up my cross and serve you with my life.