"If any want to become my followers let them take up their cross and follow me."
This is probably a top-10 best known line from the lips of Jesus. It has been preached on countless times (every year in lectionary based churches), and, as with most things Jesus is purported to have said, it has often been watered down.
I hit every red light on the way to Pensacola this morning. That is my cross to bear.
I always pick the slow line at the grocery store. That is my cross to bear.
My wireless cuts in and out at Panera. That is my cross to bear.
These are the most trivial renderings of this watering down of Jesus' lesson on discipleship; the logical progression to an absurd end, but there are others that carry much more weight, yet still are a dangerous idiomizing of a call to new life.
My child is autistic. That is my cross to bear.
My mother and father-in-law are both battling cancer. That is my cross to bear.
See how the feeling changes? Yet here too, I think the point is missed. The cross that we bear isn't an inconvenience, no matter how minor or major it might be. The cross that we bear is the means by which we lose our life. Our faith in the Triune God is the cross we bear. It means giving up everything for the will of God. It means laying down our lives for the betterment of the other. It means inaugurating the kingdom of heaven in the midst of the kingdom of the world. The cross we bear is not a difficult part of life that God gives us, but our life given back to God. Just as Jesus would carry his own cross to his execution, so too do we carry ours, by way of following in the footsteps of Christ, to the the end of our own life so that with him, we too might know the resurrected life.
1 comment:
Steve: Great Post. I have been drawn to the reading from Exodus and God's naming of himself, but this, too is powerful. Our cross, I believe, is a total turning to live our lives as we promised in our Baptismal vows...and this also includes the element that we live fully into who God created us each to be. Jesus is calling us to make our choices based on who are and who we follow - forsaking those things in the world that get in the way. Not an easy message, but some of the good news may be found, not only in the next life where everyone will be repaid for "what has been done" but also in the fact that God IS life - our very being and all that has life is full of God's own being-ness. No matter what, we are never alone. I find that exceedingly good news.
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