He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. – Mark 8:29-30

Could I become your follower
without the burden of a cross?
The walk would be so easy then,
a spiritual stroll, an amble down
the garden path of soul, refreshed with rain.

Could I become your follower
and leave aside the self-denial?
I look around and see so clearly that
a number of your followers have done
this very thing. As I could, too.

And I could cheerily obey your word
to keep my silence, tell nobody
of your puzzling riddles: save my life
by losing it? Lose my life by saving it?
I can produce such nonsense without help.

But what temptation do I have for you?
Now Peter tried by loyalty and love
to make you do what you, right near the end,
preferred: to let the cup go by
and take the simple way of power.

You turned away from tempter’s lure.
You took the road. You dared rejection, found
rejection. You were faithful unto death.
Now through that course, temptation has
no power over you forever more.

In these five stanzas, though, you’ll find
temptation has its power still, not over you,
but over me, to choose the words which ask
the least of me, and leave aside the words
which ask my height and depth.

Reluctantly, then, Sufferer
of Calvary, I lift the burden of
the day, and hope it is, indeed, a cross,
and that a Simon of Cyrene might help
me bear it to the place where life meets life.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 8:27-38, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 19 (24).

The image is Christ Carrying the Cross by Titian (ca. 1585). Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15501461.