I have been doing a lot of pondering about "taking up your cross" lately, and there is a blog post coming on it. But one of my random thoughts was that Jesus tells us to take up our cross, and yet, Simon of Cyrene carried his.
I always wondered why this was the case. Jesus clearly had been beaten, up all night, and had probably lost a lot of blood. But was His physical state the only reason that He didn't carry his own cross?
I wonder if a sinful man didn't carry the cross because in truth, sinful man is the one who was supposed to be on it.
If the cross is our sinfulness,
ReplyDeleteand if taking up our cross is continuing to go through life as Christians, bearing the sinfulness we detest,
and if Jesus' cross was, likewise, our sin ("He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities") that killed Him,
then what does it mean that one [all?] of His followers bears the cross that is His?
I guess what comes to mind is what we are promised. The cross we bear is heavy, but it is no longer a cross with a purpose. It is not meant to lead us to our deaths because it has already done that. And as we haul it through our lives, we are promised that Christ is yoked with us, that His yoke is easy and that His burden is light? Though it certainly doesn't seem like it at times, but maybe the reason why it is so is that it is a burden without the ability to crush and destroy us, that does not rely on our strength to get it to the goal?
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