Wrestling with the cross.....again

"Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."  Luke 14.27

Mention a cross and Christians think Good Friday with its unbearable image of a suffering, dying Jesus nailed to a cross, arms outstretched, chest bared to the world, stripped of everything.  But it is not his naked form which causes us to avert our eyes, but his powerless vulnerability and the wrenching violence of the scene.  For people of faith, the Good Friday cross is deep mystery, other worldly power, and - somehow - a promise.  When Jesus speaks of us carrying the cross, it is also frightening.

Our fear is not grounded in our death; our fear is grounded in the possibility that this cross is calling us to a particular manner of living.  We fear that we are called to live with arms outstretched, vulnerable, and powerless: stripped of the masks behind which we hide, the defenses we have built to protect ourselves,  and all of our resources including bank accounts and storage units.  Our fear is that faith in the Jesus who was crucified in some manner demands that we, like him, are emptied of power and solely dependent on the Creator God.  I think it does.

"Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Yet, it will not be soldiers who nail us to our modern cross of faith but love: that deep love of God which we have come to know through Jesus.  It will be the love that has transformed us by crushing our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh.  It will be the love of Jesus which has opened our eyes to our neighbors - no longer categories and labels and judgments - but wounded and gifted children of the Creator God.  It will be the love that builds relationships based not on family connections but on forgiveness and reconciliation which will bind us to this path.

It is this love which draws us to follow Jesus and calls us to carry our imperfect version of this life giving love with us - wherever we go, whomever we meet, and whatever the consequences.  As it flowed from Jesus to us, it now flows from us into the world.  We cannot put it down because we have discovered that the life we live inside this love is our most valuable possession. 

If we look closely, this cross of life-giving love for every corner of creation is the same cross Jesus carried, loving the haughty and the low, healing the broken, inviting the outcast.  His cross is our cross.

So now I must confess that my fear is real; I am afraid to do it; I am afraid that I cannot.  I struggle to release old patterns of behavior, old prejudices, and all the privileges I enjoy.  Luther was right when he wrote, "I cannot by my own strength or understanding come to faith in our Lord Jesus".  I fear what I will lose, most especially I fear that in the end, I will lose my grasp of this precious gift of grace which is Jesus.

So Jesus sits down at the table and holds up a loaf of bread and says to us, 'Whenever you gather together with bread, remember!  Remember!'  Breaking it he reminds us 'This is my body, broken for you.  Every time you raise a cup together, remember!  This is my blood poured out - in love - for you.  Wherever you go, I am there.  Remember!' 

Fed and nourished, we walk the way of cross together, you and me and Jesus, out of love, and for the sake of the world.