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Friday, October 5, 2012

Take up your cross, the Savior said

“And He said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’”  Luke 9:23

Carrying one’s cross is a necessary component of being a Christian.  In the early Church, it was literal for many.  In fact, it took awhile for images of the Crucified to be accepted, since the reality of actual crucifixions was evident in the lives of real people nailed to crosses.  Nero, it is said, lined the highway with crucified Christians who were then lit on fire to light the way at night.  Strangely symbolic.

At any rate, we are so far from grasping the reality of what a crucifixion does to a person, and we are numbed to the image of Christ Himself on the cross, because this image is not just common, but also denigrated in many ways.

Nevertheless, bearing one’s cross is part of following Him. 

The key is to discover what the cross means for each of us individually.

For some, their cross is quite evident.  They have been wounded either physically or otherwise by the wickedness of someone else.  They bear the pain every day.  For some, the cross is a difficult family situation: a negligent spouse, a troubled child, an unsympathetic parent, an ogre of a boss.  Such crosses can be easily identified, and should be embraced not in the evil that exists in them, but in the attitude one has towards them, seeing them as means to virtue and union with Christ.

But what if we have no major sufferings, no dramatic or pressing difficulties, but just the ordinary stuff of life?  How does the cross appear?

It may appear in the form of dealing with illness, unknown to others; it could be in crushing financial difficulties; it could be in the form of our own conscience and the way we can be tempted to punish ourselves or others because we know our weaknesses and failures. 

I’ve always thought that each of us designs our own cross of ultimate suffering by the choices we make, and the consequences that occur because of those choices.  We take time to cut the wood, mold its shape, determine its size and shape, and then begin to mount that cross depending on how outside forces affect us. 

It occurs to me that Jesus always knew what form His own cross would take, and He “set His face” towards that end on purpose.  While we do not know how our ultimate end will be, one thing that God gives us is the choice to take up the cross that our choices and circumstances determine.  If we take the time to consider how life is going for us, we can find shadows and splinters of the cross every day: the frustrations with goals unmet, the struggles we have with our weaknesses and failures, the opposition we encounter from others from day to day, or on an ongoing basis. 

Faith is the ability to see God’s truth in the midst of every circumstance.  Sometimes, it requires that we give thanks for His blessings that we acknowledge; other times it requires that we release the angst we can feel in the face of suffering and difficulties, not in a some esoteric or mindless way, but into the hands of the Lord, hands that are pierced with nails.  It is not a passive acceptance of the uncontrollable, but a deliberate choice to say, “This is part of my cross, and I willingly embrace what is odious for the love of Jesus, Who willingly took up His cross for me!” 

This is not an easy task.  Our minds come up with reasons why we should flee; our bodies can feel repugnance to the pain involved; our emotions can go any which way.  But our will can focus, and say, “yes”, and be united with Jesus.  One reason He endured His suffering was that we would have a model, and a source of strength, to deal with what we hate, because of what, and Whom, we love.

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