The Cross

This is Holy Week and a time to consider "The Cross of Christ."

Yesterday I preached about the crucifixion and it gave me an opportunity to be able to express my understanding of what this central image of my faith means.  I want to continue to explore and expand on that this morning. 

Jesus calls us to "pick up our cross daily and follow him."  I think it is easy to think about the cross as a piece of jewelry or a symbol.  It is - however - a method of execution.  It is a painful, public and humiliating method of execution.  Is that important?

Clearly at the center of "picking up the cross" there is death.  It means a daily decision to "die to self."  And then there is the question - what does that mean?  Is it dying to the ego?  to the false self? Is it a letting go?  A surrendering?  The answer is all of these and more.

I found this quote Tulian Tehviditan

Daily Christian living, in other words, is daily Christian dying: dying to our trivial comforts, soul-shrinking conveniences, arrogant preferences, and self-centered entitlements, and living for something much larger than what makes us comfortable and safe. 

Like the crucifixion of Jesus , our dying to self  always involves suffering. I think of some of some of the important times I had to face the "self" that needed to die.  There was  the time I caused an accident that could have killed someone,  or the time my husband announced he did not want to be married to me. There were the times  I made mistakes that affected my children, and the recognition of my prejudices and white privilege.  It is the times when I have had to face my imperfections and humanity - I was wrong, I was selfish, I was thoughtless,  I was impatient, I was clueless, I was inadequate.  In my experience, the dying to self sometimes involves humiliation and always humility. It when  that i realize - in the deepest part of myself - that  I cannot do this on my own - I need God's help - guidance, forgiveness, strength. Those big awarenesses have led to daily practices of remembering that God is present with me and always in some way - "I am weak and he is strong."  And I pick up the cross again.

There are two foundational beliefs that enable me to do the work of picking up the cross.  One is the understanding that in some mystical way Jesus is present with me in the  suffering.  There is nothing that we have experienced in life that he did not encounter and he sits with me in times of pain and isolation bringing comfort and healing.  I frequently  image him entering a room and looking at me with love and saying "What do you need?" And it helps. 

And the other belief is the understanding of God's constant and abiding love for me.  I frequently quote this sentence I learned years ago from the late preacher John Claypool: "God loves us as if we are the only one and God loves all as God loves each."  I believe this because I have experienced that love - over and over again in small and large ways.  In the beauty of an April morning, in the constant love of friends, in the music at a church service, in a mystical glow during prayer.  And I also experience times of genuine guidance - an inner knowing, a voice, a path that emerges and brings new life.

So. ......what does the cross mean to me this year? It is about  the practice of  surrendering,  letting go, confronting of self  and yes - at times -   suffering . .And it leads to a freedom to be me, a sense of peace about the future and a gratitude for the gift of this day and this time.   

Here is a wonderful prayer by Maxine Shonk

May God accompany you and bless you in your times of dying.

May God walk with you into the unknown as you say goodbye to what is familiar and beloved.

In this time of letting go may you give yourself over to all that is

loving, lifegiving, and eternal and all that lives on in memory and in mystry. 

May you be blessed by the ones who know you and received by the One who created you 

and has loved you from the beginning of time.

 

Amen