By: The Rev. Joanne Mumley
The imagery that Christ shares through His stories and His own life is made to connect with the human soul as he prepares for the coming days. Through love, Jesus taught patiently and particularly about the meaning of carrying our cross. The cross has become the symbol of Christ, Our Crucified Savior. We see this to be the case as we walk through our days—on a necklace, on a bumper sticker of a car, or on a rosary wrapped around an elderly woman’s hand. We see the cross in the faces and lives of Christians throughout the world that are following Jesus.
“The wise men of the world can find shifts to avoid the cross, and the unstable in faith can set themselves to rest with the world; but the simple servant of Christ doth look for no other but oppression in the world. And then it is their most glory, when they be under the cross of their Master Christ, which he did bear not only for our redemption but also or an example to us, that we should follow His steps in suffering, that we might be partakers of His glorious resurrection. “…Embrace Christ’s cross, and Christ shall embrace you.”
It is one thing to see and understand the sacrifice that Christ made by being nailed to the hard wood of the Cross. It is another to actually move that suffering onto ourselves. This is exactly the detail Jesus patiently gave to us in Luke. We are not only saved by the cross, but we are also to carry our cross and follow Him.
Incidentally, the author of the above quote is +Bishop of Worcester, Hugh Latimer, who was burned at the stake in Oxford in the fall 456 years ago.