In a jewelry store window of a large shopping center, a sign was posted which read: "Crosses for sale, half-price." That sign just set my mind to reeling with its implications.

In our culture it means very little to wear a cross. For many it is a meaningless piece of jewelry. When the singer Madonna wears a cross, her audience does not presume she is making a faith statement. Perhaps a fashion statement, but not a faith statement.

I am convinced that were it not for all the jewelry, lots of major league baseball players could steal more bases. All that stuff slows them down. When that 300 hitter steps to the plate with a cross dangling from his ear, neither the sportscasters nor the fans presume that he is making a faith statement. People wear lots of jewelry these days, including crosses, around the neck, on fingers, in ears, attached to navels and noses. For thousands of people, the cross is just one more popular piece of jewelry without any clear symbolism.

By the way, I have a suggestion. This week whenever you meet a person wearing a cross, step up to him or her with a big smile and say, "Thanks for wearing the cross. I'm a Christian too." If that person gives you a puzzled look and mumbles something about it being just a piece of jewelry, then you can ask, "Would you like to talk about what it means to be a Christian?" You might discover a marvelous opportunity for a witness.

Contrast our situation with some cultures where today the cross can cost you your life. In Nepal today there are 168 people in the court system charged with nothing more than being Christians.

Recently a Christian named Abraham was killed in India by a hostile Hindu group. After Bishop Dolok of Indonesia visited us in September, he returned home to find that Muslim groups had burned down many of his churches, and one pastor's family was burned to death within the church building. Christians today are the most persecuted religious group in the world, and the persecution is intensifying. Crosses are not cheap everywhere.

Jesus said, "If anyone wants to be my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross dally, and follow me." In that context, a cross refers to some suffering or sacrifice that you undertake voluntarily out of love for Christ and concern for other people. Carrying a cross will not earn you a ticket to heaven. Those tickets are free gifts from God, paid for by Christ on a cross. But if you have received that free gift of salvation, gratitude will create an inner compulsion to carry crosses for Christ's sake.

Now a disturbing question: Where in your life, or mine, is there any cross-bearing? Where is there any suffering or sacrifice for Christ or other people? These are heavy thoughts for this weekend in January. Let me take you to the biblical passage that triggered them. It is Luke, chapter 14, beginning with verse 25. Let me set the scene for you. Jesus is in the latter stage of his three-year earthly ministry. In fact, he is on the way to Jerusalem where he will be executed. Among the general public Jesus is at the apex of his popularity. Great crowds are following him because they have seen his miracles and heard his teaching. Also, they like the way he puts down the self-righteous big-shots. But Jesus can tell that most of these folks don't understand him at all. Their loyalty is about as thick as a palm leaf. They think he is headed to a coronation instead of a crucifixion. They think they are following a conquering hero; they have no idea that Jesus will be a suffering scapegoat for the world's sin.

So, perhaps as they take a break to have lunch, Jesus says to the crowd, in effect: Everybody sit down over here on this grassy slope. I need to have a heart--to-heart talk with you. Jesus says, "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." I can imagine that people's eyes opened wide and they whispered to each other, "Did he say what I think he said?" You need to understand at this point that it was the custom of teachers in the first century to overstate in order to make a point. For example, Jesus also said, "If your eye causes you to sin, yank it out.”

Also, please note that in the Aramaic language which Jesus spoke, the word for “hate” means literally "to love a great deal less than." So, Jesus was really saying, "Unless you love me a great deal more than anything or anyone, you cannot be my disciple." In fact, that's the way the gospel writer Matthew renders this troublesome statement. Then Jesus added: "Don't start anything unless you have first considered the costs and are prepared to meet them." Jesus used two examples. No one builds a watch-tower in a vineyard without first checking to make sure he can afford to buy the materials. Otherwise, he will build half a tower, then run out of materials, and become the laughing-stock of the community.

Similarly, no king takes an army out to fight a rival army without first considering whether his army is strong enough to win. If he is not strong enough, he sends his secretary of state to ask for peace terms. Then Jesus turned to this crowd of sunshine followers and said, in effect, "Before you continue following me, you better consider whether you are willing to pay the price. If you're just here on a lark, go home. If you stick with me, it will cost you.”

Gary Player, as you know, is an aging but still great golfer. In his prime he won more international golf tournaments than anyone else. Often through the years fans would approach him and say, "I would give anything to be able to hit the ball like you do." Usually Player would respond in some polite, humble way. But one day a tired and frustrated Gary Player heard that statement once too often. He responded, "You would give anything to hit a golf ball the way I do if it were easy. Do you know what you've got to do to hit a golf ball like I do? You've got to get up every morning at five o'clock, go out on the course and hit 1000 golf balls. Your hands start bleeding. You walk to the clubhouse, slap a bandage on your hand, and then go out and hit another 1000 balls. That's what it takes. You would give anything to hit a ball like I do if it were easy. But because it's not, you never will. Now, have a nice day!"

Gary Player in his own way was echoing Jesus' theme of long ago: before you establish a goal or undertake a task, count the costs. Perhaps if we were more honest, we would invite unchurched people into our fellowship in a different way. Instead of just advertising our excellent church school classes, inspirational worship services, marvelous youth program, and all the rest, perhaps we should say this: If you choose Christ as your Lord and Christ Church as your church family, it will cost you big-time. You will give far more money to his causes than you think you can afford; you will carve out precious blocks of time in which to serve other people for no pay; you will make other people's troubles your own; you will take unpopular positions on controversial issues. You might lose some friends, especially those who like to tell racist jokes. They won't find you a congenial companion anymore? Your friends who like to spend evenings at Tunica won't find you willing to make the trip anymore. And, catch this, you will follow this new lifestyle not because you have to but because you want to. And, by the way, in the process you'll have the time of your life!

In verse 27 we read: "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." Crosses involve suffering and sacrifice, and no one likes to suffer or sacrifice. In 1916, Georgia Tech played a football game against a team from the tiny law school of Cumberland University. Tech was a powerhouse and rolled over Cumberland by a score of 222 to 0. In the process the Cumberland players got roughed up pretty badly. Toward the end of the game, the Cumberland quarterback Ed Edwards fumbled a snap from center. As the Tech linemen charged, Edwards yelled to his running backs, "pick it up, pick it up." The fullback yelled back, "You pick it up; you dropped it." Suffering and sacrifice, even for a good cause, are seldom attractive."

What is your cross? There are crosses allover just waiting for shoulders to lift them. In a great church, every member should be able to name his or her cross. Tony Campolo tells about a young woman named Nancy whom he met in Philadelphia. She is crippled and confided to a wheelchair. When Tony asked her how she became crippled, she said, "By trying to commit suicide." She said, "I was living alone; I had no friends; I hated my job, and I was constantly depressed. So, I decided to jump from the window of my apartment. But instead of being killed, I ended up in the hospital paralyzed from my waist down. The second night I was in the hospital, Jesus appeared to me and told me that up until then I had had a healthy body and a crippled soul, but from then on I would have a crippled body and a healthy soul. I gave my life to Christ right then and there.

"When I got out of the hospital, I tried to think of how a woman like me could do some good, and I came up with an idea. I put an ad in the newspaper that said this: "If you are lonely or have a problem, call me. I am in a wheelchair and seldom get out. We can share our problems. Just call. I'd love to talk." The results have been astounding. Each week at least thirty calls come in. She spends her days comforting and counseling people. Nancy is a cross-bearer. If she can do it, anybody can.

The legendary pastor Halford Luccock asked his two granddaughters what they wanted for Christmas. They responded, "Give us a world." puzzled by such a request, he consulted their mother. She explained that they wanted a globe. So, that's what granddad bought them. But on Christmas morning when presents were opened, he could sense that the girls were a bit disappointed. One of them said, "We were hoping it would be a lighted world." "Oh," said granddad, "I can fix that." So he took the globes back to the store to trade them in for ones with lights inside. When he presented these lighted globes to the girls, they were thrilled. Later, Dr. Luccock told a friend about this experience, and then commented, "I learned something from this experience. I learned that a lighted world costs a lot more." If we want to light up this world for Jesus Christ, it will cost us more, in sacrifice for sure and perhaps in suffering. But look what it cost our Savior on a cross. In the words of the old hymn, "Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone, and there's a cross for me."