This week, we are asked to contemplate discipleship as an experience rather than just belief in a set of ideas. We encounter some passages of Scripture that are out of the ordinary. One episode deals with the transfiguration of Jesus, that mysterious happening where he changed appearances dramatically so that he looked supernatural. There is also the passage dealing with eating his body and drinking his blood. These seem to be strange words. And there is also the famous “deny himself” speech found in Mark 8. What do you think it means to bear the cross of Jesus? How would a person bear that cross now? How can we experience discipleship instead of merely talking about it?