What is the Cross?

Jesus is very direct; we cannot be a Christian if we won’t embrace our cross and follow Him?  He says, “whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38; see Luke 14:27), and, “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’” (Matthew 16:24; see Luke 9:23 and Mark 8:34).  But what does this mean?  How are we supposed to take up our cross?  And what I our cross? 

Usually, “the cross” is taken metaphorically for any difficulty in general.  Anything we find uncomfortable or painful is taken to be “our cross.”  This general idea of any suffering is true, but it is really the secondary meaning of “the cross.” 

For Christ, the cross was the direct result of sin, and not His sin but the sin of others.  Christ bore the weight of the world’s sin, that was His cross.  His cross was the terrible and incredible painful result of other people’s sins that He had to suffer. 

So, when Christ commands us to bear our cross, He is telling us to bear the weight of sin, both our own sin and the sin of others.  A Christian must accept the pain and suffering that sin causes.  Christ saved us precisely by accepting the cross out of love, by accepting the suffering caused by our sins.  We must do the same – we must accept the sufferings that others cause us by their sins.  We must endure these sufferings out of love for those people. 

This is a very hard teaching.  Usually, we complain and are angry when others sin and hurt us.  It is true that this is an injustice, and people should avoid hurting others.  But in a fallen world it is inevitable.  The response Christ chose to this fallen world was to bear the painful effects of other’s sin out of love, and told us to do the same.