I want you to take a moment to think of the most shocking thing you could say (but don’t say it).  We know there are words and phrases we can’t or shouldn’t say.

When those words are used- it startles us.  One of the great parts of humor, more specifically comedy- is when a punch-line goes in an unexpected direction.  Many of us, when we hear a joke, or story- we are projecting an outcome.  We are trying to figure out the punch line before we get there-  then when it goes somewhere we weren’t expecting—we’re shocked into laughing or smiling.

Likewise if you are telling a ghost story, the scary tale is building toward a spooky climax.  You know that hook is going to grab you.  That hook is just around the corner.  You’re waiting for it.  You expect it—then …………..there it is!  It shocks you.

Every now and then we need to be shocked.  We need to be shocked from the doldrums.   In extreme cases, a quick shock will keep people alive- or restart their heart.  Some people live on the edge and need to do extreme things to stimulate their lives—like voluntarily jumping out of a perfectly good plane.

I know you will not find this shocking, but a great speech or sermon, movie, story will have something in there that shocks you. It is a great device to wake-up the audience.  So be prepared to be shocked.  It could happen at any time…

Jesus goes for the shock value.  There is no way around it. He has a large crowd following him, and he is going to get their attention.  “You have to HATE your mother and your father- your sister your brother, your cousin, your paper boy, your Facebook friends.”  (That might not be that much of a stretch for some people.)  “You have to hate life and ‘carry the cross.’”

That is the worst thing that a first century Jew could say, especially living under the harsh rule of Rome.

They crucified people on crosses!  It was the death penalty for opposing the government.  If someone was accused of saying something bad about Caesar- they were killed on a cross for all to see.  They died a brutal, shameful death.

Jesus was trying to get across the ‘cost of discipleship.’  Hate your family.  Pick up a cross.  Give up all your possessions.  This is the cost of being a disciple.  It was not supposed to be easy and it wasn’t supposed to come cheap.  Jesus turned the world he lived in upside down.   He took concepts and ideas and flipped them.  His followers must have been constantly shocked by what Jesus said.  Their world was one way, and it had always been one way—and now Jesus is telling them that it doesn’t have to be that way.