Jesus I My Cross Have Taken

Henry Francis Lyte’s father abandoned his family after sending Henry and his brother off to boarding school. Henry’s mother moved to London where she and his youngest sibling died. The headmaster at the school recognized Henry’s talent for writing poetry and took him in as well as paid his tuition. From there he would go on to Trinity University in Dublin, initially with an interest in medicine that he would quickly release for the pursuit of theology.

The sudden passing of a clergyman friend of his a few years after university would further shape Lyte’s pathway through life. Becoming more concerned with the hearts of the people, he became more evangelistic in ministry. Lyte’s extensive literary knowledge, expertise in music, and his personal library, considered by some to be, at the time, one of the most extensive and valuable in West England, would not keep him from identifying and relating to the fishermen and their families that he ministered to in great numbers.

This hymn was published in 1825, during his time in the Devon fishing village of lower Brixham. His life was not absent of tragedy. He and his wife lost a month-old daughter,  and he suffered from respiratory illnesses most of his life. What was it then? Which event, which development positive or negative, would inspire Lyte to write this hymn? Or was it something else?

Matthew hints at the cost of discipleship in his account of Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast. But Luke drives right at the heart of it in Luke 9:23, where he quotes Jesus’ words, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Jesus, I my cross have taken,
all to leave and follow you;
destitute, despised, forsaken,
you on earth once suffered, too.
Perish ev’ry fond ambition,
all I’ve ever hoped or known;
yet how rich is my condition,
God and heav’n are still my own!

Let the world despise and leave me;
they have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
you are not, like them, untrue.
And, since you have smiled upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
foes may hate and friends may shun me;
show your face, and all is bright.

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure!
Come, disaster, scorn, and pain!
In your service pain is pleasure,
with your favor loss is gain.
I have called you Abba, Father;
you my all in all shall be.
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather,
all must work for good to me.

Haste, my soul, from grace to glory,
armed by faith and winged by prayer;
all but heav’n is transitory,
God’s own hand shall guide you there.
Soon shall end this earthly story,
swift shall pass the pilgrim days,
hope soon change to heav’nly glory,
faith to sight and prayer to praise.

With some hymns, commentary comes easy. Some stories have rich contextual ties to the author, time, place, event, etc. This one doesn’t. This one deals with our vulnerabilities. Merely saying we’re following Christ isn’t what Jesus has asked us to do.

Jesus left his entire earthly life to follow the will of the Father. Of course, he is Jesus and we are not. That distinction will always be there. But what he shows us is the example by which he wants us to follow him.

Luke goes on in his record of Jesus’ words after he gives the parable of the great banquet. He says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27 ESV)

In the Reformed Study Bible, the commentator writes, “He is not demanding that we hate our family members in the conventional sense of hatred. Rather, through this shocking hyperbole, He teaches that being His disciple means loving Him so unreservedly that all other loves seem to be hatred by comparison.”

In light of all of this, what “cross” did Henry Francis Lyte take up? Well, it doesn’t matter. His cross is of no consequence to us. This hymn, however, is. This hymn requires us to take up, from knowledge of mind to action of heart, the cross which God has laid before us. What is that cross? I contend it is the will of the Father. It is that which the Word speaks to us. How do we know what God’s will is for our lives? We find it by seeking after God and God alone. And the way to do that is Jesus. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 ESV)

Being a disciple is costly by earthly standards. But our earthly standards pale in comparison to what awaits us in heaven. What Jesus, through the work of the cross, has asked of us, is to put aside our desires and take up the Father’s instead.

Have I taken up my cross today? Have you?

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