"I Have A Cross To Carry?"

It is the Christian tradition to give up something for Lent.  What would you have given up in past years for Lent?  What should we do this year, any new ideas?   Well I have a different challenge for you to consider!

Feb 25, 2018 Readings:  Romans 4:13-25   Mark 8:31-38

Today is the second Sunday in Lent and for the remaining Lenten days, I have a challenge for you to consider.  Along with denying ourselves one of our favorite foods , candy, bad habit,  or putting aside some of our monies to make a special Lenten offering for the needy, may I suggest we commit to something new, something even more personal than what I just mentioned.   

In the first Sunday of lent we talked about taking an honest look at how things are going in our personal walk with Christ and to reconsider our commitment to following Jesus.   In this second Sunday of Lent, we are being asked by Mark to consider picking up our own personal Cross so as to prepare ourselves for the journey to Easter Sunday.  Lent should be for the Christian, a time of preparation, preparation for your personal journey to the cross and then to resurrection day or Easter Sunday morning.  Just as our Islamic friends are committed to make their own personal journey to Mecca at least once in their life time, so we too should be committed to make our personal journey to the cross at least once before we pass into the next life folks.   There just might be a lot at stake here?     

Now for the challenge.  In the bulletin this week I have placed an insert with the picture of an empty cross.  {If you are reading this blog, to participate may I suggest you draw a cross on a half sheet of paper as illustrated above?}  

This will be your personal cross for the remaining days and weeks leading up to Easter Sunday.   I am asking you to think of it as your daily personal place of surrender.  It will be your way of preparing yourself for an Easter Sunday morning awakening.  Easter Sunday is not just all about Jesus you know, it is also about you personally.  Your own spiritual journey and “you’re personal” awakening to a new life, a new life in Him.   As Christians, something new is supposed to happen to us on Easter Sunday folks and it not about the Easter bunny nor a multi colored basket of chocolate eggs.   On Easter Sunday morning we get a second change to begin a new resurrected life in Him once again.   So then, here is your Lenten challenge for this year:  Take a few moments each day before you retire and with a pen, write down one thing on your cross that you struggle with in your commitment to walk in the ways of Jesus.  As I said, this for some of us might be foreign and more difficult than giving up a candy or a few dollars.  The keys is to be authentic and truthful to yourself about yourself and to this challenge.    For example: It may be a swear word or a predigest thought that has slipped off your tongue.  It might be a bad habit you need to consider giving up.   It could be your impatience that day; maybe you struggle with jealous feelings; a worry; a fear; maybe your angry has gotten the best of you today; or your tongue got out of control and you told a lie that hurt someone’s feelings; or it could be an old sin that keep showing up in your life causing you to feel negative towards yourself or towards others.  Anything that can keep you from kick starting that new life you so long for within yourself, write I down.   We all have difficulties and darkness in our lives that needs to be surrendered, literally put to death.  Write them down on your Cross, take time to reflect on what your new beginning could look like for you.   Do this every day until Good Friday.  If you have a day with nothing to surrender, write just that, nothing to surrender today, but write something every day.   Then on Easter Sunday morning I would like you to bring in your un named paper cross folded. You will place it in a separate offering basket as part of your Easter Sunday offering for that morning.  Again do not write your name on the paper, I will prayer over this special offerings and later burn them in the Parsonage fire place after the service.  This may sound simple and even a bit silly to some, but I pray that you will make an effort to give it a try.  For those of us who do make the commitment to complete the challenge, be assured that a blessing will be upon you.   For nothing pleases your Heavenly Parent more than a commitment to following in the ways of Jesus. 

The Romans, had their own idea as to what taking up or carrying your own cross meant.  For them it meant suffering, fear and death.  It meant humiliation by publicly having to carry your own instrument of death on your day of execution and it was a sign of submissiveness to the Roman authority.   Mark would use this ugly suffering image of carrying your own cross to illustrate to the disciples and to us today, that commitment is a major key in following Jesus.  Take the challenge and see it through to the end folks.   It takes courage and trust to name aloud the things that hold us back from a commitment to follow Christ, especially when it involves self-disclosure.   Mark explains to us, you should be willing to lose your "self" for the sake of the Gospel because there is no life like it.   In Philippians 3: 8.   Paul tells us that there is nothing worth gaining more in this life, than your relationship with Jesus.  Don’t let the illusions of this world trap and hold you any longer. 

There is a real nugget to be found here folks, if you can see it.   My understanding of the Gospel is that Salvation is not “all about” being saved for a Cosmic Heaven after death.    It seems to me that salvation cannot be complete without being saved from something here.  May I suggest that Mark is indicating we need to be saved from “self”, that self-centered, egotistical, self-righteous self, that everyone is plagued with.   Mark 8: 35.  “Those who seek to save themselves will lose themselves.”   How is it that we have missed this golden nugget in our teachings?  Jesus is asking you to surrender your -----“self” to Him, literally the self in you, that which creates havoc and burdens your soul.  Jesus pleads with us, “give me that negative, sinful “self” that keeps you held in bondage and I will not only give you rest, I will give you the peace that passes all understanding.  You then will be able to eat with joy at the table of your enemies, and you will love your vulnerable self and others with a love that never fails or leaves you.    

Choose to go it alone and you have chosen fear, unbelief, and kayos; and that is what you will receive.  Choose to go it with Me, Jesus says and you will have chosen love, trust and grace; and that is what you will receive.  This truth folks is so simple yet so hard to teach!                                             "I Come To The Cross"