Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
~ Matthew 16:24
On Monday we celebrated the Church’s great feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Crosses are a popular cultural icon in America, where it’s pretty common to see people wearing them in jewelry form, or as a tattoo, or as a decorative feature on clothing. Even among those who aren’t Christians, there’s something about the theme of the cross that innately resonates with people. We all have crosses to bear in life. The crosses that each of us have to bear are quite different from one-another. Some of us are bearing crosses that may be invisible to everyone else. It may be some type of illness, or past injury that you or a loved one are compelled to deal with daily. It may be your efforts to be a loving and present spouse in the midst of crushing career expectations. It may be your frustrated attempts to raise up your children in the faith when they have special needs. It may be mental abuse that you suffered as a child that you still carry around, haunting every action you take. Perhaps, in your job or school environment, people respond with a kind of oppression regarding the Christian faith onto which you hold. Sometimes we carry these crosses feeling alone—as if no one else suffers the unique struggle that we have.
And yet, all around us, people walk around with crosses that others have no idea about...anxiety, depression, self-absorption and the struggle for humility, the inclination towards doubt along with a lack of trust, organization, and perception. Joel Osteen’s version of “health & wealth” gospel (that financial blessing and physical well-being are always God’s will for us) simply doesn’t hold up to Jesus’ teaching, or what has been universally experienced. In fact, these crosses are so commonly faced that even the first noble truth of Buddhism is that “Life is suffering.” Jesus told His disciples, “in this world you will have tribulation” (John 16:23). Since the fall of humanity, these kinds of burdens have been common to us all...things we should come to expect in life. However, what sets us apart is, how do we face those burdens? How do we carry our cross?
One story goes that a man once went to Jesus seeking to trade out his own cross for something that he felt would be more suitable to his own strengths. So, he told the Lord, “I see the crosses others are carrying and theirs are much easier to bear than mine. Why does my cross have to be so cumbersome and heavy? Other people carry their cross with ease and mine is hindering me. How can I be expected to grow in my faith, when the cross You gave me is so disruptive to my spiritual life?” Looking carefully at the way this poor man was carrying his cross, Jesus said, “Ah, I see just what you mean. Let’s get this resolved right away.” So, Jesus took the man to a very large room full of crosses. Our Lord instructed the man to find an empty spot to lay down his cross and then go through the rest of the room to select a new, more suitable cross. The only stipulation was that once he made his selection, he could never complain about, or exchange his cross again. Well the man searched for hours on end trying each one on for size. There was a huge number of extra-large crosses that proved far too heavy for the man. He knew there was no way he could ever carry such a cross. There were smaller crosses there too, but they were surprisingly painful. Some were covered with enormous thorns that constantly punctured his shoulder and back—a pain much too intense for him to endure. Others were so roughly hewn that they simply rubbed his neck raw. Finally, after searching all day the man came upon a cross that seemed perfect for him. It wasn’t too big, and neither was it too uncomfortable. In fact, it was so smooth that it rested perfectly on his shoulder. The man exclaimed with joy, “Here it is Lord.” Jesus asked the man, “Are you sure? Remember there are no trades or exchanges afterward and no more complaining about your cross.” The man replied, “I’m sure. This is the perfect cross for me!” To which Jesus gently responded, “My child, if you look a bit more closely, you’d realize that that is the very same cross you carried in with you today.”
Saint Paul once ended a hymn of glorifying praise to God with this instruction to Christians: “Therefore... offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). On a superficial level we might think that, as Christians we can get behind that instruction and easily follow it. But think about the imagery that Paul is using here of an animal being brought to the temple to be set on the altar alive...so that it can be killed there upon the altar. Do you know what the problem is with a living sacrifice? It keeps trying to crawl off the altar. At least that’s been the case with me. I don’t like dying to myself. It’s unpleasant. It involves uncomfortable things...sometimes it even means embracing excruciating pain. And yet, depending on how I engage with it, by God’s grace, that discomfort and that pain may serve to help bring about my salvation. And this speaks especially to the current ills of American culture, where the concept of denying our ideas, either as an act of humility, obedience, or in deference to our neighbor is something entirely foreign. Here in sophisticated circles of society, we’ve become more attuned to asserting our rights for what we perceive that we’re entitled to. Fatefully these days, we don’t hear the phrase “take up your cross,” instead we most often hear “take up the CAUSE”, meaning take up a cause, even if that cause goes against the cross, and fight instead for that cause. We’re further away than ever from our Lord’s instruction to take up our CROSS in a way that follows Him...and if you take a look around, you might notice that it’s destroying us all.
So, when Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever wants to be My disciple, they must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me,” He was talking about what we do with life’s daily struggles that turn those struggles into an act of worship. Maybe it’s a cruel co-worker who is difficult to love…and yet by God’s grace, we work to love them. Maybe it’s a temptation we regularly have…but we fight against it because we know it draws us away from communion with our Lord. Maybe it’s a sordid past that others still judge us by…but we’re learning how to humble ourselves, accept people’s mistrust of us and devote ourselves to earning their trust back, no matter how much time it takes. Maybe it’s a rebellious attitude that has difficulty in truly giving God reign over our hearts...where we put all our effort into learning to trust Him. Maybe it’s a chronic illness that gives us enormous pain...and we’re being called to transcend it, and by God’s grace to become a vessel of His love in spite of it all. Maybe our cross is in feelings of being victimized because of our sex, or race, or the color of our skin, where we’ve been taught to be angry, and take up the cause of equality of outcomes, even if it means stealing from a neighbor in order to equal things out...but instead, by God’s grace, we ignore the sickness of culture around us and we learn to embrace the teaching of the scripture. Regardless of the type of the cross we bear, the truth is, we all have one that was made especially for us to find salvation. Each of us is, or were meant to be carrying our cross for and towards that blessed Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. As we bear our crosses, we need to keep something in mind.
My cross is my cross…and your cross is your cross. One of the most destructive things we can do is look at someone else’s cross with suspicious envy and think, “Lord, they have it easy.” The actual truth is, we don’t have a clue how it feels to wear someone else’s cross. It may look lighter as far as we’re able to see with our shallow, self-absorbed vision, but there may be much more to what they’re carrying than what the rest of us are capable of seeing. The cross Jesus has allowed to be placed on your shoulders is your cross. It was made and designed especially for you, to fit your personal needs...for bringing you into unity with Him. So, let’s learn to bear our crosses with prayerful humility and grace. As you carry your cross along, learn to keep your eyes fixed upon Him and to ask for his merciful assistance, saying, “O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” And by His grace, He will help and strengthen each of us through our cross-training, as we help and strengthen each other, to make it to the finish line with Him.
