Friday, March 25, 2005
From: Gary Bauer

The Cross

Imagine that you are Simon of Cyrene. A visitor to Jerusalem, "passing by on [your] way in from the country" (Mark 15:21), perhaps yourself Jewish, coming to the Holy City to celebrate the Passover. Suddenly you are thrust into the middle of the greatest drama in history, forced by Roman soldiers to carry the cross of Jesus, this derided "King of the Jews," on the way to Golgotha. Little is known of this traveler Simon, but the mind's eye pictures him not as grudging and taken by surprise, but as accepting his burden and understanding his role not as that of a convenient surrogate but instead a willing witness to the God-made-man for whom he briefly sacrificed.

We see Simon of Cyrene as a symbol of the cost of discipleship. He alone, in human terms, had the privilege of carrying the physical cross to which all of us have added by our sins. Whether our contribution to that cross is relatively great or small, whether our misdeeds are splinters or spars, motes or beams, our tribulations are as nothing compared to those of Our Lord, who bore it all for our sake, who did not merely carry the cross but triumphed over it, over sin and death, as we could not.

For most of us today, our tribulations are as nothing compared to those of others around us. Terri Schiavo, nearing a full week without food and water, may be experiencing a trial few of us will ever know. Who will carry her cross even part of the way? A family in Florida is grieving the murder of their nine-year-old daughter, taken and killed by a man whom our courts, seemingly washing their hands, had in their grasp more than two dozen times. Who is carrying this family's cross even part of the way? Native American families in northern Minnesota, tough people living in rugged country, mourn the killing and maiming of adults and children by an all-but-orphaned teenager who succumbed to an ideology of despair. Who can lift the heavy burden from their shoulders?

As Christians, we know the answer to these questions. We know that the answer is our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that Simon carried the cross for Jesus temporarily, but that he carried it for Simon and for us all eternally. Whatever our griefs and heartbreak, whatever sudden surprises have wrested us from our journey and thrust us into unexpected tragedy, the duration of our pain is limited because the depth of Jesus' sacrifice was not. On the path of sorrow, we hand our crosses back to him, knowing that the end of his walk to Calvary is the beginning of our freedom from death.

The centurion, seeing "how he died" (Mark 15:39), proclaimed, "Surely this man was the Son of God." On Easter morning, seeing how he rose from the dead, that spontaneous prayer was vindicated. On this coming Easter morning, believers in every corner of the world, in every nation, some openly and some in fear of their government, some prosperous and some in duress, will unite in that prayer. Let us remember each other as this great Sunday of salvation approaches; let us rejoice in the great things our God has done for us, for our faith and our families; and let us vow to take up our crosses anew. Let us also vow to take up, even for a time, the crosses of others too weary to go on.