For the Wounded and the Watching - Reflections on Mark 8:27-9:1 Part 3

Sometimes the call to discipleship sounds like a rebuke.
Sometimes it sounds like a demand.
And if you’ve been hurt by the church — really hurt — then Jesus’ words in Mark 8 may land like salt in a wound:

“Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me.”

That verse has been repeated in hospital rooms, at kitchen tables, in sermons and counseling sessions. Too often, it’s been wielded as justification rather than invitation.

Justification for staying in an abusive marriage.
Justification for keeping quiet about racism, misogyny, or spiritual abuse.
Justification for enduring harm in silence so the church can remain “unified.”

I’ve heard these words used to tell survivors that their suffering was God’s will — that endurance was proof of holiness. I’ve watched entire communities bend this passage into a tool of containment, asking people to swallow their pain for the sake of appearances, comfort, or institutional survival.

But that is not the Gospel.
And that is not what Jesus meant.

In Mark 8:27–9:1, Jesus isn’t talking to those already crushed under the weight of injustice or trauma. He’s speaking to his disciples — people with a choice. People still deciding whether they’re truly ready to follow. And Jesus tells the truth: faithfulness will be costly. Love that refuses to conform to empire, silence, or violence will come at a price.

But that price isn’t abuse. It’s resistance.

The cross Jesus calls us to carry is not the same as the suffering others have forced on us. It’s not the betrayal, violence, or marginalization we were given without consent. It’s not staying in the harm. The cross is what we choose to bear when we follow Jesus into solidarity — when we speak truth in the face of power, when we stand with the vulnerable, when we refuse to be silent even when our voices shake.

This is not Jesus asking for more pain.
This is Jesus saying: this is what love looks like when the world doesn’t want to hear it.

And that’s why this passage matters so deeply for those who carry wounds from the church, from family, from spiritual systems that confused control with discipleship.

If you’ve ever been told your abuse was “just your cross to bear”…
If you were asked to stay silent so the institution wouldn’t suffer…
If your grief or identity or truth was too uncomfortable for your community…

You are not imagining things.
You were not wrong to feel betrayed.
And Jesus is not the one who hurt you.

He is the one who weeps with you.

The cross, as Mark tells it, doesn’t sanctify harm.
It unmasks it.
It reveals just how deep our resistance goes when confronted with real love, real justice, real surrender.
It shows us where the powerful have failed — and where God has chosen to show up instead.

Mark’s Gospel doesn’t sanitize the suffering. It doesn’t clean it up. But it also doesn’t end there. The cross is never the final word. It’s the place where God says: I am here, too. Even here. Especially here.

That’s why this story matters for those who are still watching the church from the margins — for those wondering if there’s anything left to hope for. If you’ve been made to feel unwelcome in the body of Christ because you named harm, because you asked questions, because you refused to make yourself smaller…

Know this:
You are not forgotten.
You are not disqualified.
You are not alone.

The Gospel — the real Gospel — still belongs to you.

Because the One who calls us to take up the cross?
He carried it first.
Not to teach you to suffer in silence, but to show you that God is found in the very places religion tries to avoid.
That your pain is not too much.
That your truth is holy.
And that resurrection begins with telling the truth about what crucified you.

Jesus isn’t asking you to carry what others did to you.
He’s asking you to trust that he’ll walk with you — as you name it, grieve it, and begin again.

And that is good news.
Even for the wounded.
Especially for the watching.