Constant Cross

 Last year my Easter post was titled A Message of Hope (Coffeetime With A Dear Friend April 13, 2020)  it was about finding Hope in the cross.

I encouraged people to leave a cross of some form up and visible until we saw some sort of break or relief from the pandemic...from the darkness we felt closing in around us.

At Christmas time each week of Advent was about the cross.   Hope in the cross, Peace, Joy and Love in the cross. 

My cross is still up....and was ready for this Easter. 

Will I take it down for the summer??? 

My hope in the cross does not stop...

The pandemic numbers are improving...a vaccine is out there, to prevent the severity of the illness...but not eliminate it.  Definitely an improvement, but our lives are still different.  There are so many other things in many of our lives that have irrevocably changed how we live.

Do the crosses we have to bear go away?

Sometimes we feel it more prominently.  Sometimes it feels more and more is being added and we strain under the weight of it 

📖 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. Luke 9: 22-24

📖 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  Matthew 16:24  (ESV)

That is what Jesus asked...commanded of His followers.  Are we choosing to follow Him?

Then we are called to do the same. 

In the accounts of Christ's torture and crucifixion three of the gospels; Matthew,  Mark and Luke, describe a man being pulled from the crowd and shouldering the burden that was Jesus's.   

📖 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. Luke 23:26

In John it says;

📖   Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha) John 19:17

Traditionally it is felt that Christ was made to carry His own cross or crossbeam (carrying the cross, patibulum (crossbeam in Latin), (Wikipedia)). Either way would have been extremely heavy, and at least starting out He carried His own. But He had been beaten beyond recognition, His physical condition was certainly not at it's best, so they pulled Simon from the crowd and forced him to carry the burden placed on Jesus.

Certainly it can be said about some of our spiritual conditions right now, if not our actual physical selves; feeling beaten up, run through the wringer, crushed, etc. (but certainly not to the extent Jesus had been).

📖 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Someone gave Him aid...helped Him carry the burden.

📖 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends John 15:13

God gives us those people who come along side and help.

The Good Samaritan  (click the link to read the story)

But more importantly He said:

📖 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus said He will shoulder our cross....we only have to let go, stop trying to carry it alone. 

He already took our sins and shame when He carried that cross beam.  My sins, your sins, the world's sins were weighting it down.

When what we are carrying begins to feel as if it will crush us..

He is there and wants us to give it to Him.

He has already won that battle...we don't have to carry the full weight of it.

Yes....things may be different,  life may have changed, but we don't have to let it destroy us!

Yes....the cross is forever....what Christ did on it was for all.

📖 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. Romans 6:10

But He no longer carries it....He is no longer nailed to it....He left the cross on the hill.

It is our reminder, of what He did to take the burden of our cross upon Himself. 

We take up our cross and follow Him....knowing He is going to carry it with us...taking the burden (he already has!)

He wants to comfort the sorrow,  ease suffering, bring light to the darkness.

My cross may just stay right where it is...

when I am feeling overwhelmed and pressed to the point of being crushed I don't have to carry mine alone.... it will remind me He carries it for me....