Familiar phrases from the bible today
Jesus words to Peter:  King James – get thee behind me satan!
 Jesus words to the people: if any want to follow, they must: “take up the cross and follow me”
The disciples must have thought they were not hearing Jesus right when he first said that.  They had been traveling with him for a while now, and had seen his popularity increase. They had been there when he healed, restored sight, and when he had fed thousands. Peter, at least, had come to believe that he WAS THE MESSIAH and had proclaimed it aloud.  
The hope for a Messiah was, in many ways, what had kept the people going for many generations. And, of course they knew what to expect from him.  The was going to be a great military leader, able to gather the strength of the people together.  He would be a winner.  A victor.  He was going to overthrow the much hated Romans and sit on the throne of his ancestor David. When that happened, Israel would be great again.
Things would be wonderful once the Messiah came. The coming of the Messiah would be the end to poverty and oppression, suffering,  sorrow and sadness. The coming of the Messiah was to be a great and glorious time in their history. And, now that they were the special friends of the one who would soon put his divinely sanctioned plan into action, I doubt the disciples could hardly wait until they began to reap the benefits of this new reign.
These somewhat harsh words of Jesus must have driven the disciples into a serious reconsideration of everything they had come to believe about the mission of the Messiah.
You see, our feelings about the cross today are a little bit different than they would have been to the people who were alive in Jesus time.  If he were born in this past century, and was executed according to our methods, the symbol we would wear around our neck, and place in our churches, depending what part of the world we were from, might be a syringe or gurney (representing lethal injection), or perhaps a gun or rifle (representing a firing squad), or maybe an electric chair, a noose, or a guillotine.  Instruments of state sanctioned death which remain fresh in our collective memory and which perhaps carry more feelings of distate and revulsion than what that (point) symbolizes.  Removed as we are from our ancient past, we forget that the cross as we know it today was a very real and present implement of death, torture and cruelty to the people of the bible. 
The cross in Jesus time, was not the same symbol of success or victory we think of today. The cross was a symbol of suffering, of shame.  No one placed on a cross was a true hero; no one on a cross would have a following for every long – - or they would be there too. And, the only reason to carry a cross, was to carry it to the place of execution. That’s how they got the crosses there; and this last demeaning task increased the suffering and humiliation of the condemned criminals as well.  It would have been unthinkable to the people of Israel, and indeed the disciples to even consider for a moment, that the Messiah would die a humiliating and painful death – even against the backdrop of the suffering servant found in Isaiah. 
To them, to any sane person, a suffering hero who would ask his followers to suffer and die, instead of winning and defeating the enemy by force, was certainly an oxymoron; it just didn’t make sense.  Perhaps they thought they misheard.  Perhaps that’s why Peter spoke up.
It’s hard for us to imagine, 2000 years post resurrection, how absolutely, mind boggling, revolutionary, his thinking was.
What does it mean to take up the cross and follow Jesus?
Women and Men around the world who fight for human rights or to educate their children and women against oppressive governments and those who strive, sometimes at great personal cost to make the world a better place, this is what it is to take up the cross and follow Jesus.
It is always about extending oneself - about a road less traveled – Those who respond with a choice that willingly shoulders the consequences of speaking out or acting on behalf of others in some way, for faith and right and life in the midst of a world that is fast going in the other direction, are those who bear the cross of Jesus.
To carry a cross is to place our faith at the centre of our actions, 7 days a week. It is not to leave our faith at the church door at the end of the service, or at home when we leave for work in the morning, but to live it out, despite what some others may think.
In a world where the prevailing creed is “look after yourself and your family first” the gospel calls us to look beyond ourselves and our family to the good news of God in Jesus, and to make that the priority in our lives.
Why would this be required of the faithful? Why indeed? It’s a large part of the paradox of the gospel; and yet it is the heart of the gospel’s message. The message, as summed up by St Francis is that those who follow in the way of Jesus of Nazareth

To be certain, in the traditional way of looking at things, it does not make sense; but as it is lived out, IT IS LIFE IN THE GOSPEL.  
The fact is that Christians are meant to sacrifice for the gospel, without hope for personal gain. The fact is that the church is not meant to be successful, as its primary goal, but to be faithful.
I have a correction to make about Christian piety and the bearing of one’s cross:  Many people who are burdened in life, for instance by living in abusive relationships or who are crippled by self doubts, think that is their cross to bear - No cross, while it may invite suffering, ever asks us to accept that we are less than we are created to be: beloved Children of God.  We need to remember that.
Likewise, this passage is often mis-interpreted so that some look at the difficulties in their lives, over which they have no control, and call that a cross. What I am speaking of here are the personal and family tragedies such as a physical or mental handicap and our ways of dealing with it as the “the cross we must bear”.  This is not to diminish or discount the lives and efforts of folk who must cope with these particular kinds of challenges.  What I am saying is that this is not what this passage is about.
But, when a family has a disabled child for example, the cross MAY be the efforts the community as a whole makes to support this family, such as special programs at the church or the advocacy of special programs in the community. The cross may be the cost of a wheelchair ramp or a sound system designed for the hearing impaired.  It has something to do with our shared work and responsibility as a church as we begin to shoulder some of that weight ourselves.
In such situations, the harsh meaning behind taking up the cross becomes rediscovered anew.  They become about freedom and fullness of life.
Anytime we follow after Jesus for the sole purpose of making OUR lives easier, our own sense of comfort, or for the purpose of saving OUR own souls we are mistaken. The Christian faith has always carried a mandate for service - a call to move beyond oneself to care for others.
To take up the cross is the life and work of the community.
May this Lenten season be a time of soul searching;
A time of re-commitment to the way of the cross;
A time of realizing that as we walk the way of the cross we walk with the one who came to bring LIFE in all of its fullness.