Today's guest post is from Jeff Pitts
The
Weight of the Cross
32 As they were going out, they
met a man from Cyrene, named
Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. Matthew 27:32
Was it just a case of wrong place at the wrong
time? Or quite possibly it was a divine place in God’s time. Either way, a man named Simon from the region
of Cyrene surely in town for the festivities of the Passover became the bearer
of the cross of Jesus.
My imagination takes me to Simon in a church
meeting some time later with possibly one of the disciples or a disciple of one
of the disciples. The teaching of that particular day is of the time Jesus said
“pick up your cross daily and follow me.”
Simon slowly raises his hand and says “I did that.” Surely with a quizzical look the
teacher asks Simon what he means.
He repeats “I took up the cross of Christ…and it was heavy.”
Outside of Jesus, Simon may be the only other
person who knows the actual weight of the cross of Christ. But the charge from Christ was for us
to take it up every day. The cross
is not as light as the one on the gold chain around our necks. It does not lay lightly like the one
stitched into the throw blanket on the end of the bed. The cross is challenging, difficult and
at times extremely heavy.
This brings me to this
statement of Jesus “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The weight of daily taking the heavy cross that Jesus references
as light seems like a contradiction.
Here is why it is not. While
Simon carried the cross, Christ hung on it. He took the crown, He took the nails, He took the
cross. This one act makes
something incredibly heavy, light for you and me. Because he went to cross paid the price for you and me, for
all of our sins, the weight of the cross becomes something we can carry.
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