YESS!! The air is punched.
No - it isn't actually.
Instead, Jesus warns people to secrecy, and then drops a bombshell, talking about terrible suffering coming his way, rejection leading to death.
It's stark, and it sounds like defeat. Is Jesus really predicting that his mission is going to fail?
Then to the crowds listening in, he tells them there is a huge price for following him. You are going to need to take up your cross, if you're going to walk my way.
People wouldn't have failed to understand this. Ugly crosses of wood and crude scaffolds were common sight at crossroads and market squares. It was how the Romans made examples of rebels. Before they were nailed up and left to die, they were made to "carry their cross," to walk with their means of execution on their back to the place where they would be hoisted aloft and left as food for the carrion birds.
Try and hang on to your life, and you will lose it, warned Jesus. What did he mean? How is it possible to give up your life and yet save it? This isn't a parable, it's a plain contradiction. How can anybody make sense of this?
Jesus, what's going on?
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