The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
June 20, 2004 

Take Up Your Cross Daily[1]
Luke 9:18-24 

Jesus said, “ If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” While this saying sounds like a metaphor alone, there have been those through the centuries who have had to take this verse of scripture literally. 

In 1597, the absolute ruler of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, sentenced 24 Christians to die. They would be marched to Nagasaki, center of Japanese Christianity where they were to be placed on crosses and then speared to death. The six European missionaries together with some of their converts were to serve as a warning to all Japanese Christians.  

At the time these Christians were sentenced to death, the 24 were the tiniest fraction of the estimated 300,000 baptized Christians in Japan. The ruler of Japan feared European colonialism more than Christianity, but he sought nonetheless to kill off Christianity in his nation. 

On the march to Nagasaki, two Christians openly to encourage the condemned Christians. For their encouragement, those two were sentenced to death, bringing the total of martyrs to 26. The youngest of the group were 12-year-old Louis Ibaraki and 13-year-old Thomas Kozaki. Father Francis Blanco wrote of the youngest of the group on the eve of execution, “We have little Louis with us and he is so full of courage and in such high spirits that it astonishes everybody.” 

Each of the martyrs had a custom made cross and the boys arrived at the site looking for the smaller ones, meant for them. Each of the condemned men literally embraced their crosses before lying out on them. One by one the prisoners were fixed to the poles. No nails were used. Hands and feet and neck were kept in position with iron rings and a rope around the waist kept the victim tightly bound to the cross.  

Once the martyrs had been tied to the crosses, all twenty-six were lifted simultaneously and dropped into the ground with a thump. The sentence of death has been attached to the shaft of a lance. It read:  

“As these men came from the Philippines under the guise of ambassadors, and chose to stay in Miyako preaching the Christian law, which I have severely forbidden all these years, I come to decree that they be put to death, together with the Japanese that have accepted that law.” 

Father Paul Miki straightened himself on his cross, looked at the crowds and said in a loud voice: " All of you who are here, please, listen to me. "  

“I did not come from the Philippines, I am a Japanese by birth, and a brother of the Society of Jesus. I have committed no crime, and the only reason why I am put to death is that I have been teaching the doctrine of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I am very happy to die for such a cause, and see my death as a great blessing from the Lord. At this critical time, when, you can rest assured that I will not try to deceive you, I want to stress and make it unmistakably clear that man can find no way to salvation other than the Christian way.” 

Witnesses tell us that some of the guards kept edging nearer to Paul's cross, spellbound by his words. Paul saw them. He also saw Terazawa and the executioners. He went on to say:  

“The Christian law commands that we forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us…. I would rather have all the Japanese become Christians.” 

Paul then turned to, his companions, the ones nearer to him exchanged a few words with them and greeted a friend he could identify among the crowd. And then lifting up his heart to heaven: “Lord into thy hands I commend my spirit. Come to meet me ye Saints of God. . .” 

The executioners worked their way along the line of crosses, quickly killing each man in turn, in many cases silencing voices still praising God in song.  

In a letter to his superior, Father Francis Calderon, a Jesuit missionary, wrote, “Although thirty-seven days have passed since they were crucified, we still have before our eyes . . . this holy display of the martyrs’ bodies, still on their crosses.” Father Calderon added: 

I can tell Your Reverence, that these deaths have been a special gift of Divine Providence to this church. Up to now our persecutor had not gone to the extreme of shedding Christian blood. Our teaching therefore had been mostly theoretical, without the corroborating evidence of dying for our Christian faith. But now, seeing by experience these remarkable and most extraordinary deaths, it is beyond belief how much our new Christians have been strengthened, how much encouragement they have received to do the same themselves. 

In 1598 an envoy from the Philippines was permitted by Hideyoshi to gather the last remains of the martyrs and their crosses. The Christians planted a tree in each of the holes in the ground left by the crosses, and in the center they built a big cross. Each year, pilgrims made their way to Nishizaka Hill, which they began calling Martyrs’ Hill. The plan to exterminate Christianity had backfired. That horrible instrument of execution, the cross, was bringing others to faith in Christ. 

This situation continued until 1619, when the executioner cut down the martyrs' trees. Then more than 650 Christians and missionaries were put to death on the same hill of Nishizaka and its surroundings. By 1630, the Japanese government did succeeded in driving Christianity completely underground. The Japanese Christians had taken up their crosses and followed Jesus to their own calvary, their own deaths on a cross. 

Even though the Japanese Christians took up their crosses and remained faithful unto death, I don’t think that these martyrs showed the only way to follow this saying of Jesus. I do not intend to take away anything from the massive suffering for Christ endured by these Japanese Christians for I find their faithfulness in the face of persecution inspiring. Yet they are not the whole story of Japanese Christianity. 

Even with 650 crucifixions, the church did not die in Nagasaki. Forced underground, the Christian message was passed from parents to children verbally. With no books or formal teaching, Christianity remained underground, passed along this way for 276 years. When Christianity was no longer persecuted the church resumed public ministry already claiming thousands whose faith had been handed down through the generations.  

This second group of faithful in Nagasaki may speak more to our own circumstances. You are not likely ever to be called to either renounce your faith in Jesus or die. You will probably never be given that clear cut choice for or against faith. 

Instead of a dramatic moment of decision, you are more likely to face a lifetime of decisions. Every day, you are to deny yourself—die to the you that you want to be in order to live into the you of whom God dreams. Each day you are called to live as a Christian in ways big and small knowing that the world has been known to greet Jesus’ message of love and life with hatred and death.  

Rather than asking yourself what you are willing to die for, try asking for what you currently live. If you look back over the ways in which you spend your time, energy and money, you will find that much of what you spend your life on has nothing to do with your faith. That’s fine, you need food and shelter. You need to take care of yourself and your family. But what about the rest of your life? Beyond the parts of your life where you are more or less like everyone else, are their also the ways in which you live into Jesus’ challenge? 

Jesus challenged those who would be his followers to deny themselves, take up their crosses daily and follow him.” This statement comes right as Jesus has answered the question of his own identity. The crowds still see Jesus as John the Baptist, Elijah or another ancient prophet. Yet those who follow Jesus are to know the deeper reality. Jesus was not just a great moral teacher or prophet. Jesus was and is the Son of God. Jesus’ challenge was to live into the knowledge that Jesus is God the son. To truly understand, as Peter understood, that Jesus is God’s son will have an impact on your life. 

Paul Miki and his companions were happy to die for their faith in Christ. Each of us faces a point of decision made less dramatic as we face it a hundred times a day each day of our lives. In all the decisions we make about what we do with our lives, we often make the choice to follow Jesus or choose to follow our own devices and desires.  

Choosing to follow Jesus may mean denying what you want for yourself. But I have on some rare occasions gotten it right. And in the ways in which I have chosen to follow Jesus instead of my own ideas about who I am to be, I have been blessed to see that following Jesus leads me to a better me, more fulfilled self.  

It is a paradox that in denying yourself you will find yourself, but it remains no less true. Today you will face small choices about the kind of person God is calling you to be. Will you actually pray for those you know to be in need? Will you reach out to encourage a friend in distress? Will you show the love of God to others? Or will you let all those opportunities slide as you go on your merry way?  

But remember, it starts all over tomorrow. Once again you will face all those small choices that determine whether you are a Christ follower. For as we won’t face a once and for all moment of deciding to follow Christ all the way to death, then we get to make those decisions each and every day as we take up our crosses and follow our crucified and risen Lord. 

Amen.