Take Up Your Cross

I used to think that “taking up your cross” meant “just accept your affliction and offer it up” or “stop complaining” or “use your illness or disease as a form of prayer for others” or “shut up, things could be worse”, however, lately I’ve had a new insight into this concept. The cross is the ultimate sign of sacrificial love, the symbol of grace, the source of our healing, the forgiveness of our sin, the payment for our debt, the instrument of salvation, and the evidence of God’s unconditional love for us. It seems to me that “taking up your cross” is not such a “stop your complaining” statement as it is a daily decision to accept God’s love command. Taking up my cross means taking up God’s sacrifice, God’s grace, God’s healing, God’s forgiveness, God’s payment, God’s salvation, God’s only begotten Son, and daily choosing to live as a witness to these things with my life. Denying myself means to deny that I can do anything apart from the mercy received through the cross. I don’t need to save myself because Jesus has already saved me. 

Coming after him means to pursue him in daily prayer so that I can accept and receive his love and follow him into the world. Following Jesus means that I have the call, the authority, and the grace to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and cleanse the lepers (Matthew 10:8). The cross has already been taken up by Jesus and so “taking up the cross” means taking up Jesus daily. Yes, suffering is a part of our human experience, and yes, suffering can be used as a way to unite ourselves to Christ’s heart, however, Jesus did not die to bring us affliction and pain, he died to bring us freedom, mercy, love, and forgiveness, therefore, our daily cross is carrying those things on our shoulders as a reminder of God’s radical love. Yes, we should all stop complaining so much, and yes, we can use fasting and self denial as a form of intercessory prayer, and yes, we will be persecuted for our beliefs and are called to stay the course in faith, but the cross is no longer a symbol of torture, agony, and death, it is a sign of salvation and when we pick it up, we pick up the truth that Jesus is the only Savior. When we lose our lives for his sake, we take ourselves out of the saving and leave that to Jesus who has already saved us on the cross. 

I don’t know about you, but this new perspective on “taking up your cross” changes everything for me. I’m not asked to take up an instrument of death and suffering that is heavy and terrible and crushing, I am asked to take up the love and the mercy that was poured out onto that cross, and I am asked to live in that love and mercy daily. His burden is light remember? I’m going to sit with this during Lent. As I soak in His presence every morning, I am going to soak in the blessings of the cross and not focus on its heaviness. It is important to remember the pain of the cross, but it is more important to let its divine mercy wash over us daily. It is well with my soul. 

Reading 1 DT 30:15-20

Moses said to the people:
"Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

Responsorial Psalm PS 1:1-2, 3, 4 AND 6

R. (40:5a)  Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

Verse Before The Gospel MT 4:17

Repent, says the Lord;
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Gospel LK 9:22-25

Jesus said to his disciples:
"The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised."

Then he said to all,
"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?"