Duped

Then Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

Matthew 16:21-27

Take up your cross, the savior says.
Beneath his own, he stooped,
and we who follow in his steps
must let ourselves be duped.

For it is madness, is it not,
to be so crucified?
A folly and a stumbling block,
yet we'll be lifted high.

We fight the weight that comes to us
and kick against the trace,
but soon or late we'll each be crushed,
and we will call it grace.

For there in sorrow and in grief
Christ lays his wounded head
on purpose to receive the thief
and walk among the dead.

The cross that is our pain and death
he came intent to share,
accepting from his first-drawn breath
the weight he was to bear.

His madness joins us on the cross;
his folly shares our fate,
so he could hold us in his arms
through all we can't escape.

Jeremiah By Ephraim Moses Lilien – E. M. Lilien, eine künstlerische Entwickelung um die Jahrhundertwende, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49628661