Bearing Your Cross
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Matthew 10:34-42
You'll remember Simon of Cyrene, of course. The man who has been
immortalized as the one who carried the cross of Christ. When Jesus
could go on no longer, the Roman soldiers grabbed this guy out of his
innocent-bystanderness in order to pick up Jesus' cross so that He
could go on to the Place of the Skull. The cross of Christ is the crux
of history. We talk about Jesus bearing the cross. Does it take away
from what He did knowing that He couldn't even carry His cross to
Calvary? Is it presumptuous of Jesus to say to us that we must bear
our cross when He Himself didn't even carry His own?
No, it doesn't take away from what He accomplished, because He didn't
come to bear His cross but ours. He has no cross to bear. He did
choose, however, to bear our cross. In the Roman form of punishment,
the criminal was compelled to carry his own cross to the place of
crucifixion. But though the Romans were crucifying Jesus, they weren't
dictating the form of punishment He suffered. God Himself was. Christ
did not come to carry a wooden cross to a hill. He came to bear the
burden of our sin. He walked that path to the hill on which He was
crucified in order to carry a burden beyond what those Roman soldiers
could imagine. Little did they know that the man they were prodding up
the hill of Golgotha was the one who would be taking away all their
sins.
So if Christ has born the cross for us, why does He say that if we do
not carry our cross and follow Him we are not worthy of Him? It's
important for us to understand what carrying our cross is and what it
isn't.
What it is is suffering. What it isn't is looking for suffering.
Suffering on account of Christ doesn't mean we go moping around. You
know those people Jesus talked about who pray on the street corner so
others can see how holy they are? In the same way that we're not to do
that, we are not to go around making sure everyone knows we are
bearing a cross for Christ. Seemingly the opposite of what Christ is
calling us to, it may not seem to the world at all that we are bearing
a cross. We are in fact to be joyful in our enduring of our suffering.
Living as a Christian is kind of like a achieving a balancing act. If
you think what the gymnasts have been doing the last four years in
preparing for the Olympics this summer is impressive, they've got
nothing on us. And I'm being serious. Obviously, physically speaking
they are without peer in regards to balancing. But what a Christian
needs to do in his or her life in carrying one's cross doesn't require
talent, but something that has nothing to do with what a gymnast does.
It requires faith. No matter how much talent, how much drive, how much
work you put in, an Olympian, or even the greatest Christian, cannot
accomplish the single thing that is needed to bear one's cross—faith.
Faith is simple trust in your Lord Jesus Christ who bore the cross for
you. It sounds simple doesn't it? So why do you fail so miserably so
often in your following of Jesus? It's because you don't see your life
as a balancing act. You see it as a means to achieving happiness for
yourself. Faith, by contrast, locks on to Jesus. Faith does not see
bearing one's cross as a necessary evil but as a natural part of
following Jesus. But this is so unnatural to our sinful flesh, which
is constantly concentrated on itself. Jesus' call is to discipleship.
To denial of self. To accepting suffering as the will of God in your
life as a Christian. It means denial of self even to the point of loss
of life itself.
What bearing one's cross means is not that we can't do anything we
enjoy. God, after all, did create life and created it for our
enjoyment of it. Bearing our cross does not mean we don't have any
fun. It doesn't mean we become a monk or are miserable every second of
the day. What it means is that we don't seek our enjoyment of those
things at the expense of bearing our cross. We certainly are not to
hate our parents and family. God commands us to honor our parents and
love our family. But we may be more concerned about how they feel
about us than about what our Lord Jesus Christ thinks of us. If the
things of this world are more important to us than what God wills for
us, even if it means suffering, even if it means suffering unto death,
then we are not worthy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Bearing our cross is not a way to gain favor with God. It is a way for
God to show His favor to us. This might sound odd. If God wants to
show His favor to us, why make our lives difficult? It's like the
saying, with friends like these, who needs enemies? But here is where
we see one of the most important things that God does for us and how
He does it: and this that He loves us. We know He loves us, of course.
But the way He does it is not only by the Gospel, by the pure
abounding grace He pours out upon us in His Son Jesus Christ. It is
also through the Law. It is through His hammering work upon our stone
cold hearts. This is truly an act and work of love by our gracious
God. If something's broke, it needs fixing. That's what God does in
His work of the Law. He breaks our stony hearts so that we may see our
guilt and our need for His salvation. How loving would He be if He
ignored our sin and let us go on our merry way to hell?
His work of giving us a cross to bear is similar. We may not like it,
but it is His loving work He does in our lives. Without a cross to
bear we would get soft. We might even think we don't need God. But
bearing your cross is not a demand on you. Our sinful flesh sees it as
that and rebels against it, but it is actually a blessing from God.
Jesus brings this home in the last two Beatitudes: "Blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice
and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they
persecuted the prophets who were before you." He doesn't say we are
blessed by Him if our cross is removed from us, but if we bear our
cross.
How do we bear our cross? We prayed this morning in the Collect of the
Day for our Lord to "grant that we may gladly hear [His] Word
proclaimed among us and follow its directing." One of the simplest
things we can do as Christians to bear our cross and follow Jesus is
also one of the hardest: be in the Word of God. Read it. Study it.
Meditate upon it. When there are so many other appealing things to
read; or to watch on TV; or simply things to do—it's hard to hunker
down and really get into the Word of God.
Why did Jesus use the term "cross" to describe what a person must bear
if he is to be a follower of Him? Because the cross is the premiere
symbol of self-denial. Jesus makes this clear in His very next words:
"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for
My sake will find it." Consider the cross the Christian bears in light
of the cross Jesus bore. Jesus denied Himself. He "did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing,
taking the form of a servant." Jesus is not asking of us to forget who
we are or to get rid of everything that is important or enjoyable to
us.
But He is straightforwardly telling us that He comes first in our
lives. If we can't do something as simple as be in the Word of God on
a daily basis, how worthy can we expect ourselves to be? If this
sounds like Law, that's because it is. It is exactly what our selfish
hearts need to hear. Because in hearing it we see what is behind it,
and that is pure love; grace, mercy, and peace from God our Savior and
our Lord Jesus Christ. He invites you to be in His Word so that you
may be strengthened by Him to stand firm in the day of trial. He
invites you to His Holy Supper so that you may be comforted and
forgiven. He reminds you daily of your new Birth in Christ through the
water and the Word so that you may know that this reminder is really
nothing else than His granting to you of eternal life. Amen.
--
Pastor Paul L. Willweber
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS]
San Diego, California
princeofpeacesd.net
three-taverns.blogspot.com
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