by Brother Ron Wood
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
(Luk 9:23)
How often have you either heard someone say, or even said yourself, when going through some difficulty that it is your cross to bear? We make the slightest hardship a cross and by doing so we have thoughtlessly taken away the marrow and the meaning of the cross. I want to give you five things which will shed a great deal of light on what it means to take up our cross:
A cross is a place of shame.
Hanging on a cross was reserved for the very worst and most despicable of criminals. To be hung on a cross meant that your deserved no pity because of the shamefulness of your crimes. It declared to all that you were the lowest of the low and exposed the vileness of your acts. I can think of no modern equivalent to the degradation, humiliation and shame of being hung on a cross.
A cross was a place of unimaginable agony.
Being hung on a cross was a slow and agonizing death. The shock of having nails driven through your hands and your feet doesn’t even compare to the agony of the weight of your body choking you. The torture of not being able even to lift your weight in order to even breathe because it hung on the points of the nails driven into you is beyond description. All effort for relief only brought more agony.
A cross was a place of vengeance.
To be hung on a cross meant that you deserved the very worst kind of death. The heinousness of your acts required a heinous retribution. This was no mere slap on the wrist or swat of correction. It was the very worst of penalties designed to exact the most suffering in order to assuage vengeance.
A cross was a place of death.
You didn’t survive hanging on a cross. To be condemned to a cross was a death penalty from which there was no hope of recovery. Paul was stoned and left for dead but recovered. Prisoners had hope of being released. Beatings and scourging may leave you scarred for life but you survived. There were none who survived the cross. It was final. The cross was death.
A cross was a place of curse.
As awful as it is to even think of the finality and shamefulness of death on a cross as an agonizing way to leave this world the curse of God is even greater. He declared and will not go back that cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Deut. 21:23, Gal. 3:13
Taking up your cross daily.
If we would come after and follow Jesus it requires that we take up our cross daily and lose our life. Trials, hardships and difficulties certainly is the lot of all believers. Our Lord never promised us that we wouldn’t have to endure the difficulties of life in a wicked and evil world. In fact He told us the opposite. In the world you shall have tribulation… John 16:33 Let us never imagine that enduring the hatred and malice of the world is our cross to bear. Let us never imagine that patiently persevering through the trying providence of our merciful Lord is a cross we must bear.
Taking up our cross is simply seeing in the cross of our Lord and Savior our death in our Substitute. He bore our shame. He suffered in our place. He satisfied the vengeful justice of God for us. He died as our Surety and Representative. He was made a curse for us. Taking up our cross daily is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Looking to Him we deny all our righteousness and worthiness before God. We deny anything of ourselves that would recommend us to God. Taking up our cross is to acknowledge before God that we deserve all the shame, all the agony and all the curse that He bore in our place.
Taking up our cross is to lose our life that we might have life.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
(Gal 2:20)
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but in His sovereign mercy.
