Carrying Jesus’ Cross

Posted by craigbarnes on Nov 9, 2009 in Daily Bread | 1 comment

It is interesting that none of the gospels tell us exactly why Simon was seized and told to bear Jesus’ cross. We have long speculated it is because Jesus was beaten too severely to carry the weight. But we aren’t told that. In fact, Luke doesn’t even tell us Jesus was flogged by Pilate. Perhaps the reason Simon had to carry the cross has less to do with Jesus’ condition than it does with Simon’s. Perhaps it was a grace that Simon got to have his business with life interrupted long enough to be a true disciple, bearing the cross behind Jesus. Because beneath that cross, the most amazing things happen to people.

Ask the people who have been through one of the great crises of life, who discovered a vision of the Savior along the way, and every one of them will tell you the most amazing thing. They will say that they now give thanks for the cross. That’s not because it made them stronger or wiser, but because it made them a disciple, like they had never been before. Now they have learned to follow Jesus through change. All things are made new to us the day we realize that Jesus is dying on our cross.

Is this not what Jesus has been promising to his followers all along? He didn’t come to give us a few pointers on ethics and better living. He came to transform us as new creations. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Christianity is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better. Rather it is like turning a horse into a winged creature… so it will soar over fences which could have never been jumped.” But there is no winged new life apart from dying to the old life that wasn’t working anyway. There is no Easter apart from Good Friday.

I’m not saying that everyone who endures hardship will be turned into a new creation. Some just become more cynical and despairing through their trials. I’m saying that everyone who looks up from the cross to follow Jesus discovers Jesus is leading us home, not to Cyrene, but home. And the closer we get to our home with the heavenly Father, the closer we get transformed into the good creations he made of us from the beginning. But there is no way home but through the cross of Jesus.