He Carries MY Cross

 Until the cross has become personal to you, it really hasn't sunk it fully what it meant at all...

This is something I've been thinking extensively about as we've been approaching Holy Week. Most of us grow up familiar with the symbol of the cross - the sign of Roman execution and horrific torture - as a sign of faith. Because we have seen the depictions of Jesus's death, we've become accustomed to the cross in many ways. Yet, what you become familiar with can also mean less to you. Sometimes you can end up taking for granted people or things that ought to mean the world to you because you're around them so much. You get used to them and begin to think of them as less special or meaningful than perhaps you did at the beginning. It becomes easier to hurt them, ignore them, reject them, move on from them because you let yourself get too comfortable, too familiar.   

Perhaps the significance of the Easter story is much the same. In the flurry of chocolate eggs and flowered dresses, warmer days and spring blooms, cards with bunnies and nice sentiments, beautiful church music and happier vibes, we can lose sight of the reason we celebrate: that an innocent God-Man willingly went through cruelest form of punishment in order to give humanity a second chance at eternal life. That cross was meant for you! For me! Those cries of "He is guilty!" were intended for us... because we were! If we do not understand that when the Son of God stumbled through the streets, bleeding to death and falling under the weight of a pair of beams that are estimated to have been over three hundred pounds all because He loved you enough... then the cross has never become personal for you. Or you've forgotten to be amazed by Grace. 

The substitutionary atonement that took place that dark day forever re-wrote history and ought to leave us in astonishment. If we could've been there that day... seen the passersby trying to make sense of it all, listening to the weeping of Christ's mother Mary and her friends at the foot of the cross, seen John accepting the role of caring for Mary, heard Jesus crying out to His Father, "Why have you forsaken Me?" felt the earthquake shake, heard the story of the rent temple curtain, watched the Roman guard admit that "truly, this was the Son of God," heard the exchange between Christ and the thief as He promised him eternal life... we would've been speechless. Every last one of us. And we would get it. 

If we could be one of the disciples after the resurrection... touched His wounds like Thomas, or knelt to look into the tomb like Peter and John, or heard His voice call our name like Mary Magdelene, or watch Him cook breakfast on the shore, we would be in wonder. And yet, sometimes we aren't. Or we stop being so. All-sufficient merit stops becoming awe-inspiring. We get too used to the story. We are thankful but not overly so. We lose sight of just how incredible the sacrifice and subsequent resurrection of Jesus really is. And we certainly don't live as though this reality has utterly turned the world upside down. Because if we did, troubling events would've disturb us so much because we know Who has overcome the world. Who rules kingdoms and governments wouldn't be as angering because we'd know their hearts are in the hand of the Lord, being turned as He pleases (Prov. 21:1). We would recognize that the one singular event all those millennia ago changed everything, leaving us with peace in the midst of it all. 

But we are also asked to carry a cross of our own, to "share in the sufferings" of the Christ (1 Pet. 4:13) as we bear our burdens in this life. And that cross can sometimes feel like its own three hundred pounds, leaving us to stagger under its weight. There are moments when we also  ask God why and feel as though we've been forsaken. Yet our comfort in such seasons is that Jesus already passed this way. He carried His cross for you so yours doesn't have to have the last word. All the pains and sorrows and reactions that hurt you now were paid for through Him. And, like Simon of Cyrene who took on the weight of Jesus' cross because He was too physically weak to carry it all the way Himself (Matt. 27:32), Jesus comes up to you and picks up the weight of your cross and says, Here... let me help you bear that. My yoke is easy and My burden is light. You do not do this alone. Our crosses become bearable because He bore His. 

So as we see the cross now, we see triumph. We see hope. Because Jesus did the impossible... endured the unthinkable... for your sake and mine. He even said that He could command a host of angels to rescue Him from that experience (Matt. 26:53), but He didn't. He knew He came for that one event in time. All of His earthly life had been a lead-up to that exact act of unconditional love and it's because of that act of love that we can have a second chance. But for us to fully grasp it - however much we can - we have to see ourselves in Christ's place. You don't know what you've been spared until you've seen what someone went through on your behalf. The cross must be personal in order to be profoundly life-changing. 

As we reflect this Holy Week... as we read the passages, sing the songs, gather and celebrate with those we love... may we also hear the pounding of nails, imagine the spilling of divine blood, and also the cry of "It is finished" that change the trajectory of humanity forever. For it is in allowing ourselves to realize that His wounds were ours that we can also understand that "by His stripes we have been healed" (Isaiah 53:5). "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows... He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities... All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:4-6).