Day 31

As they went out, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; this man they compelled to carry His cross. Matthew 27:32 (From the Sixth Gospel of Holy Thursday Evening)

We hear our Lord tell His followers in the Gospel of Mark “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.”

As we reflect on the current crisis that we find ourselves in, this idea of a cross to bear is a real and tangible thing. Our working environment has changed, our children’s lives have been disrupted, and our normal activities have been curtailed. All of us, as family, as church family, and as society are bearing the same cross.

All of these disturbances however, pale in comparison to the cross that Jesus took up for us and for our salvation. Even outside of the current crisis, most of us complain about the difficulties in our lives. Some of them are real: medical conditions, relationships, finances and more. Some are simply things that we are unhappy with: status, jobs, wealth. There is an old saying that goes something like: “I understand I have a cross to bear Lord, but does it have to be so heavy?”

But again, have any of us ever experienced the type of cross that Jesus carried. Wasn’t it enough to be betrayed? Wasn’t it enough to be slapped and spit upon? Wasn’t it enough to be whipped and tortured? Wasn’t it enough to be sentenced to death? And yet, He was still compelled to carry that instrument of death to the place He was to be executed.

So as we struggle, during the current crisis or with anything else, Jesus gives us the beautiful example of what it means to carry one’s cross and follow Him. Fr. Stavros lays out three things we must do as we struggle in our lives, and these three things are vital to us today.

We must first have the resolve to keep going in our struggles. Whether it’s a personal cross or the cross we all bear right now, we must persevere. AN old adage says that a journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step.

Next, we must look to today’s scripture passage. We all need help. That help if first and foremost God. But it also includes those around us. This is what makes our parish family so vital. We support one another, we pray for one another. Yes, we are separate right now, physically, but we are together and united in our faith and our love of God.

And the last thing, and perhaps most important as Fr. Stavros says, is that our struggle is temporary. Our current crisis will pass. We will go back to work, our children will go back to school, we will get to go out to dinner again. And one day…some day…there will be toilet paper on the shelves again!

The same can be said about the crosses we bear on an ongoing basis. This life, and its struggles, is temporary. This life (or time of preparation as we learned before) is but a drop in the bucket of eternal life. For those of us who believe, those of us who have faith, the burden of our crosses is temporary.

This reminds me of a story I read about years ago that I will paraphrase here for you. There was a monk who was unhappy with the struggles in his life. He prayed every day that God would give him an easier cross to bear. One night he had a dream. In that dream he was in a large room filled with hundreds of crosses. Some big, some small. He heard God tell him to pick the cross he wanted to bear. So he searched the room until he found a small white cross. It was very light when he picked it up. He said to God, ‘I will take this cross.’ God then said to Him ‘That is the cross you already have!’

No matter how heavy we think our cross is, now or in our ‘normal’ life, God is there to help us with it. And others are there as well: family, friends, church. We are not called to ‘go it alone’. And when we bear our cross, with the help of God and others, we grow closer to God, closer to salvation.

Jesus didn’t despair as He struggled to carry His cross. He was determined, He had help and He knew that this was but a moment in time that would bring an eternity of salvation to those who believed in Him.

Pick up your cross today with joy. The joy of salvation!

In Christ

Fr. David