Tuesday, November 15, 2022

John 19:17-22

John 19:17-22 

  What if you had to carry your own cross?
  I wonder about the things that are putting us to death, as individuals and as a society.  Seems like we pay most of them little attention -- like the unhealthy food we often mindlessly put into our bodies, we're often pouring unhealthy habits into our souls, staring with greed at the next big thing that we think will bring us peace in our life but only breeds more anxiety and competition, leaving us with scarce resources and stressing our financials and souls.  
  Maybe we are carrying our own cross, only we don't realize that it's a cross, because we're too busy trying to keep up with everyone else.  If we're all marching in the same direction, then we can't be wrong, can we?
  Can we?
  I wonder how Jesus regarded the cross he was carrying.  Did he carry it with the confidence of a man about to die and rise from the grave?  Or did he weep with the overwhelming knowledge that humanity treats death so callously that we design such instruments of torture?  Did he mourn for all the ways we've strayed from the Garden of Eden and left behind the peaceful bliss offered to us by God in that place?  Or did he have joy in his heart as he realized that this was the instrument through which we would be redeemed?
  May we pay attention in the world, to notice the crosses we carry and those burdening one another, and may we receive one another with grace, for life is hard enough without us making it harder for one another.  May the joy we find in a Savior willing to die carry us forward into the world today.

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