The Cost of Following Jesus | Matthew 8:18-22

Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

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I cannot adequately express how important my experience at Pinecrest was to me.  It was there that I made lifelong friends and was first given the opportunity to explore with others the wonders and complexity of the Biblical Message.  It was also there that I received the call to the ordained ministry.  I was certainly influenced by the wonderful pastors I met, but I was most inspired by the beauty of the lake and the natural surroundings.  (This environment was a welcome change from having spent the summer working in Manhattan!)

Eventually, the trajectory of my ministry led me to graduate study in New Testament and to college teaching at Carthage College in Wisconsin.  There I taught a class on the German Pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave his life in opposition to the Nazi regime at the end of World War II.  In his book, Nachfolge (in English translation: The Cost of Discipleship), he contrasts cheap grace and costly grace.  Cheap grace is that which requires no risk or consequence; it is easy and often self-serving.  Costly grace requires that the disciple “take up one’s cross and follow [Jesus]” (Mark 8:34) no matter what the consequence.  Bonhoeffer’s life is an inspiration for this kind of costly grace.  He left a comfortable life to confront a monstrous evil.  As a result, he was imprisoned by the Nazis and executed in February, 1945, just months before WWII ended.

Prayer:  Lord, let Bonhoeffer be an inspiration to all of us as to what it truly means to be a disciple.  In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus calls to all disciples to take up their crosses and follow him, no matter where that path may take them.  Give us the courage and faithfulness to embody this call to discipleship in our own lives.  Amen.

Pastor Christian D. von Dehsen, Ph. D.

Upper West Side, New York, NY

Camper, 1968 - 1975