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How
you carry a heavy load can make a world of difference. I learned
that lesson in the mountains of Korea. As a Marine infantryman
I was issued the standard two piece canvas pack that I think
was a carryover from World War I, if not before. It held all
of the equipment that we were issued, but there was no room
left over anything extra; and it had the disposition that
seems to come with all canvas packs of letting the sharpest
and roughest objects in the pack end up next to the most sensitive
part of your back.
I soon
noticed that the Korean workers who carried food, fuel and
water up to our position on the line didn't have those kind
of packs. They had packboards. Now, the G.I. packboard was
a rude device, light years behind the internal and external
frame packs that have made backpacking so much more comfortable,
and even comparatively fashionable today; but when it came
to carrying heavy loads, they were a major improvement over
the canvas packs that we were issued. The packboard made heavy
loads much more manageable; they let you add an item or two
if you wanted to; they spread the weight much better, instead
of just hanging it from your shoulders; and they provided
an air space between the heavy canvas pad that was against
your back and the board itself. So when I saw another Marine
start to throw one away because he said it added two or three
extra pounds to his total load, I asked him to throw it to
me. I carried it the rest of my time in Korea and never regretted
its extra couple of pounds for a moment. A few years later,
I carried one just like it for several miles of the Appalachian
Trail in Pennsylvania and in the Porcupine Mountains in northern
Michigan until I could afford one of the lighter aluminum
frame packs. Sometimes a little extra weight of the right
kind can be a plus. How you carry a heavy load can
make a world of difference.
So what
does this have to do with Holy Week? Am I trying to tell you
that Jesus should have used a packframe on the Via Dolorosa?
No, of course not. But I would like to relate that lesson
about how to carry heavy loads to the lessons we see in Jesus'
life and to the carrying of the crosses that our Lord invites
us to carry as we follow after him.
Let me
say in the beginning that I am not going to try and "explain"
the cross this evening. I am supposed to get you out of here
in time for seven o'clock meetings. On the subject of that
cross, for this evening at least, I will be content with the
lines that others have used before:
But having
acknowledged an ultimate mystery in the cross, there is also
a sense in which we can identify some lessons from Jesus'
carrying of his cross that help make the smaller crucifixions
in our world and in our lives redemptive in their own way.
The first
secret in making a cross redemptive is the element of ownership.
A cross is an intensely personal thing. The writer of John's
gospel almost seems to go out of his way to impress that upon
us about the cross of Jesus. Legend has it that one of the
stories circulated to discredit the resurrection of Jesus
had to do with Simon of Cyrene. Simon, you may remember, was
a bystander whom Matthew, Mark and Luke all report as being
drafted into carrying the cross of Jesus the final distance.
Disbelievers said that he, Simon, ended up on the cross,
while Jesus was taken away secretly by the disciples and later
only claimed to have been resurrected.
When John
wrote his Gospel, he wanted to be sure that there was no misunderstanding
on this point, so he skips over any reference to Simon. You
understand, John is not trying to discredit Simon; he is underscoring
the fact that it was not Simon's cross and Simon did not die
on it. So he wrote, "Jesus went out carrying his cross
for himself."
An unknown
author said it this way:
They
borrowed a bed to lay his head
When Christ the Lord came down;
They borrowed an ass in the mountain pass
For Him to ride to town;
He borrowed
the bread when the crowd He fed
On the grassy mountain side;
He borrowed the dish of broken fish
With which he satisfied;
He borrowed
the ship in which to sit
To teach the multitude;
He borrowed a nest in which to rest,
He had never a home so crude;
He borrowed
a room on His way to the tomb,
The Passover lamb to eat;
They borrowed a cave for him a grave;
They borrowed a winding sheet.
But
the Crown that He wore and the Cross that he bore
Were His own ---
The Cross was His own.
There
is a sense, of course, in which crucifixions always involve
more than the individuals who endure them. Circumstances conspire
in ways to force us into places that we would not choose to
go. They did for Jesus; one of the gospels specifically says,
"and they compelled him to carry the cross." And
history tells us that was the Roman way - the condemned was
required to carry his own cross to the place of execution.
But Jesus could have turned away from the cross. He could
have stayed away from Jerusalem, as his own disciples urged
him to do; but he didn't. John makes it very clear that Jesus
looked at the circumstances brought about by his enemies and
made a choice. John tells us that as Jesus tried to prepare
his disciples for his coming death, he said to them, "No
man takes my life from me; I lay it down myself. I have power
to lay it down and I have power to take it up again."
When it
is said and done, any task or service that is to become redemptive
must be something that we choose to do because of the worth
that we see in it and because of the conviction that it is
the task to which God calls us. There is such as thing as
"choosing" even that which some would say was inevitable,
when by an act of our own will we "claim it" as
our own instead of a resentful yielding to the circumstances.
That is the sense in which Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, "If
it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not
my will but Yours be done." That did not mean that God
wanted men to kill his son instead of accepting him;
but in the circumstances that offered only death or a denial
of who he was, Jesus chose to go to a cross to show God's
love; that element of choice is part of what made his cross
redemptive.
The way
that Jesus carried his cross has a second lesson for us. It
is a difficult quality to describe, and in a sense it is easier
to say what it is not than what it is. Let me try it this
way. If a cross is to be redemptive, there can be no attitude
of self pity about it.
Haven't
you had the experience of seeing someone ruin something that
might have been redemptive by the attitude in which it was
faced? Have you ever had anyone tell you about "their
cross" in a way that seemed designed more to elicit sympathy
than anything else? There is something somehow contradictory
about a person who goes through life with a sign that reads
"Look at me; I am carrying a cross," as though that
were a larger or more important cross than the one anyone
else had to carry.
I remember
being involved in an activity some years ago in which one
of the participants had been to the South for one of the Civil
Rights demonstrations. You did not have to be with him very
long before you were made very aware of that fact. I happened
to be sitting next to the guest speaker for that day, who
had also been in some of those activities. He had made no
reference to that fact; I just happened to know that about
him. I will never forget this man saying to me, when the first
individual went through another recital of his experience,
"I prefer my martyrs a little less eager."
Do you
know what he meant? Pat and I have a saying that we exchange
with each other now and then. It is to the effect that sometimes
it is easier to be a martyr than to be married to one. That
is true of more than marriages.
What a
contrast to the cross of Christ! It was not until Jesus had
spoken words of comfort to mourners along the way, prayed
for forgiveness for his enemies, thought of the needs of his
mother, and offered solace to a dying thief that he so much
as asked for a drink of water for his parched lips. I read
once of a child, looking at a cross for the first time, who
said, "Oh, it's an `I' crossed out." Perhaps selflessness
is the word I am looking for.
Finally,
in looking at how to carry a cross redemptively, there needs
to be a note of confidence in the act. The cross bearer must
have the conviction that what that he or she is going through
is somehow going to be worthwhile; that good is going to come
out of it - sometime, somehow, somewhere, for someone.
Throughout
the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, for all of Pilate's questions,
for all the soldier's mocking, in spite of the beatings and
the pain, despite the loneliness and the feeling of abandonment,
there never seems to be any doubt about who is in control.
Jesus' final words reflect that attitude. Listen for them
on Friday when you keep the vigil: "Father, into Your
hands I commit my spirit." Confidence!
Studdert-Kennedy
has caught that confidence in a verse about the crucifixion.
He pictures the soldiers at the scene casting their dice and
he writes:
He
was a gambler, too, my Christ.
He took his life and threw
It for a world redeemed.
And ere his agony was done,
Before the westering sun went down,
Crowning the day with its crimson crown,
He knew that he had won.
"And
Jesus went out, carrying his own cross" ... having said,
"No man takes my life from me; I lay it down myself.
I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up
again."
We may
not be able to embody the supreme acceptance and grace and
confidence of Jesus, but time and again in the lives of individuals
who offer themselves in sacrificial ways there is this note
of confidence that shines through and undergirds what they
do. There is a note of confidence in every redemptive journey.
There
has never been a shortage of crosses in our world. Greed,
prejudice and hate are turning out new ones every day. How
do you carry a cross? If we are to make it redemptive, we
have to bring to those crosses the elements of choice, of
self giving and of confidence. And how do we do all of that?
I am not suggesting that we become invincible simply by determination
and positive thinking. But that cross that Jesus carried,
the one that we cannot fully explain, offers a power that
we can appropriate; it offers us the grace to make our own
crosses redemptive.
Mind you,
I am not saying that it is easy. Such grace and confidence
may appear to offer added weight to what we are already carrying.
To love those who dislike us, to return good for evil, to
forgive as we have been forgiven, to serve instead of seeking
to be served - all of that seems to be adding weight to what
seems an already heavy load. But like that old packboard in
Korea, sometimes a little added weight of the right kind makes
the rest of the load carry better. We discover that we walk
with One who shares the very burdens that He asks to take
up in his name.
How
you carry a heavy load can make a world of difference; and
sometimes - sometimes - how you carry a cross can make a different
world.
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