Take Up Your Cross And Follow Me

 Human beings tend to look at each day as being a struggle.  I didn’t sleep well last night.  I’m going to be tired all day.  The boss is waiting for a report from me, and I haven’t started it yet because he’s given me three other things to do that are more important.  The car needs tires.  The yard needs cut or raked.  The house needs cleaned.  What’ll I cook for dinner?

Isn’t that where most of us live on a daily basis?  Maybe you’d say that such thoughts are not “complaints” so much as they are observations of how today’s just going to be that same struggle that I’ve come to expect from every other day.

Where is your Cross in all of this turmoil?  What is it that the Lord is calling you (and me) to “take up” so that we can be His followers?  And why these specific words—”take up”??

The idea of “taking up” implies lifting, elevating, placing at the fore of things to be considered, making it literally in front of our eyes and therefore primary in our view.  In other words, don’t bear your (our) cross by pulling it behind us.  Things treated in this way weigh us down and impede our ability to get things done.

That’s not what the Cross is to us.

For us, the Cross is our source of strength.  It is our light in times of darkness, our strength in times of weakness, our health in times of illness, our calm in times of turmoil, that which provides for us the peace that our Lord promised to us.  We refer to the Cross as our “invincible trophy, our weapon of peace” in our hymnology for this Feast.

As Orthodox Christians, many (I dare say most) of us wear a Cross about our necks.  Why do we do this?  People on the streets see it as a fashion statement.  There have been countless times when out in public dressed in clerics someone will look at me and say, “I really like your Cross.”  What should one say to such a comment?  One reply that perhaps won’t offend is, “Thank you, but it’s not worn to generate compliments.”

When a priest puts his pectoral cross on, he offers the words of the title of this piece as a prayer.  He makes the sign of the Cross over his Cross, and says, “You must take up your Cross and follow Me.”  He then kisses the Cross before putting it over his neck.  It’s an appropriate prayer and practice for any Orthodox Christian to follow in wearing their own Cross.

All those things that are happening today that will attempt to distract me, to weigh me down, to conquer my spirit—all of them will be seen in a different light if I first “take up my Cross,” if I elevate it in my field of view, if I call upon it to be that weapon of peace.  For there is no denying it’s power. 

St. Theophan the Recluse taught this:  Remember that each of us has his own cross.  The Golgotha of this cross is our heart.  It is being lifted or implanted through a zealous determination to live according to the Spirit of God.  Just as salvation of the world is by the Cross of Christ, so our salvation is by our crucifixion on our own cross.

To take up and to carry is to allow the Cross to conquer all those things that tie us to today and to trouble.  To elevate our Lord’s Cross in our lives is to live recognizing His already won victory over this world, the salvation He is waiting to grant to you and to me—if only we find it in our ability to take us the small cross He has left for us.