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TIEPOLO, 1749. Let’s Talk About…. The Burden of the Cross. John 19:17 tells us that Jesus, bearing His cross , went out to be crucified . And…. Mark 10:21 has Jesus saying, take up the cross, and follow Me . So….
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Let’s Talk About… The Burden of the Cross John 19:17 tells us that Jesus,bearing His cross, went out to be crucified. And… Mark 10:21 has Jesus saying, take up the cross, and follow Me. So… To get an idea of what’s requiredinbearingone’s cross,let’sfollowJesus… Tony E. Denton, 5/07.ASiteForTheLord.com
The Burden of the Cross was firstly borne by Jesus in the form of the Emotional Stress found in Self-Denial and Loneliness.
Jesus feared His death. He prayed, Remove this cup from Me (Luke 22:42). But it probably wasn’t the thought of death itself, but the thought of dying apart from His father that motivated His resistance. See… In His death He’d bear the sin of the world, and as He died bearing sin, His holy father would turn away from Him. So it’s likely that nothing hurt Jesus more than the prospect of losing His union with His father for a time; but His sacrifice for our sin would mean exactly that (Mark 15:34).
Jesus prayed in agony. The Bible says, Being in agony He prayed more earnestly (Luke 22:44). Yes, He dreaded the thought of losing His union with the Father by bearing our sin, but this very relationship with God was what motivated Him to keep moving toward the cross, for to refuse to die would be to refuse His father’s will;sounderstandably … Heagonized.
Jesus denied Himself. The Lord ended His prayer with the words, Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done (Luke 22:42). I.e…. He relinquished to the Father that which He wanted to keep for Himself more than anything else—His will!
Jesus was alone in His darkest hour. Judas betrayed Him just as foretold by David: Even My closest friend, in whom I trusted, who ate My bread, has lifted up his heel against Me (Psa. 41:9). The disciples forsook Him, just as fore-told by Zechariah: Strike the shepherd thatthesheepmaybescattered(13:9). Even Peter, the one who had assured Him of his loyalty, denied Him with an oath (Mat. 26:72). Next…
The Burden of the Cross was borne by Jesus in the form ofPhysical Abuse.
Jesus endured horrific beatings. The writers use 6 different terms to ex-press the action of beating which Jesus endured, 3 of which reveal the various ways He suffered blows. Hewasslappedaround(John18:22). He was struck with the fist (what beat in Mat. 26:67 means). And… He was thrashed so that His skin was stripped off of Him (what beat in Luke 22:63 means). Now…
Picture the bruised and swollen faceof a boxer: his eyebrows and cheeks bloody and his eyes swollen shut! Re- member Rocky? Jesus endured this type of treatment… not once, but … twice (and without gloves)! Both the Jews & the Romans attacked our Lord. And this was only the beginning! After being spit on & beaten in this manner…
Jesus endured scourgings. No, the thrashing of Luke 22:63 wasn’t the end of it: Luke 23:16 goes on to speak of Pilate’s chastisement of Jesus. (Cf. John 19:1 where it reads as scourging.) Thescourge wasgenerallycomposedof a rod with leather thongs attached; on the ends of the thongs were attached pieces of lead or bits of bone designed to rip out pieces of flesh. These beatings were so savage that Roman law forbade its use on Romans.
Eusebius, a Christian historian of the 3rd century, once described the deaths of some martyrs of scourging like this: Everyone around was horrified to see them so torn with scourgings that their veryveins werelaidbare and their very bowels were exposed. The intensity of scourging was so great that the Jews had a law that no man could be lashed more than 39 times, but the Romans had no such law: they could scourge a man until he was a heap of mangled flesh if they wished.
Jesus endured the crowning as well. Oh No! It wasn’t just placed on His head: the thorns, like nails, were beaten into His skull (Mat. 27:30)! The pain was immense as with each stroke the thorns sank deeper into His brow; the bleeding was profuse and blinding as it ran into his eyes. Prophecy said that He’d be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities (Isa. 53:5).
This was the Jesus Pilate presented to the Jews. There stood Jesus: His head crowned with thorns and blood clotted hair; His swollen face, barely visible behind the sweat, spit, and blood; and His body riddled with holes from the scourge. Pilate beckoned to Jesus with his hand and said to the Jews, Behold the Man! Prophecy said, His appearance was marred more than any other man (Isa. 52:14). The term for marred means disfigured or destroyed.
This picture might give us a clue as to how Jesus looked at this point. Even with all this…
The Jews, His own people, had no com-passion on Him: they cried out, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! And Pilate, desiring toavoidtotalchaos,gaveJesustothem to be crucified. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Allthat wehavediscussedtothis point, theemotionalandphysicaltrauma,was a part of the burden of the cross from Gethsemane through His numerous beatings. Now we approach the burden of the literal cross that He bore.
The Burden of the Cross that Jesus carried through Jerusalem was more than any man (especially in His condition) could physically bear.
The cross was a burden in itself. It seems that Jesus didn’t even see the entirecross whenHe was forcedtocar-ryit:scholars say that Jesuscouldn’t have carried the entire cross consisting of two beams of rough hewn wood; such a cross would’ve been too large and too heavy for a healthy robust man to carry, much less the weary Jesus.So (contrary to the first picture we looked at)… Jesuslikely borethehorizontalcross-member to Calvary, for it of itself was burdensome enough for one man.
This picture might give us a better clue as to what Jesus actually bore. And when you think about it, this may have been even more difficult to carry, having nothing on which to hold.
Jesus of Nazareth:King of the Jews The journey to Calvary was a pro-cession of humiliation. Ever wonder what it would’ve beenlike to follow Jesus as He bore His cross? Do you picture a simple lone stroll through the countryside? One verse says that A great multitude of the people followed Him (Luke 22: 27a), and (historically) at the front of the group were four soldiers, one of whom held up the accusation-plaque:
Directly behind Jesus and the soldiers followed a group of mourners(whether sincere or not, Luke 22:27b); and sur-roundingthemandclosebythesoldiers was another group: a taunting, perse-cuting mob who mocked Him, spat on Him, and pulled at His beard. Prophecy quoted Jesus saying, I gave My back to those who struck Me and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting (Isa. 50:6). So…
The road to Calvary was likeagauntlet: a double line of men armed with clubs to beat a person forced between them. To Jesus, the road to Calvary was just like this, seemingly, I’m sure, with no end in sight; but eventually He cameto the end … the end of His strength, and He could no longer push Himself forward. So…
Jesus collapsed in exhaustion be-neath the cross. No one knows how far the Lord carried His cross before falling beneath it, but Matthew indicated that He collapsed near the entrance to the city: As they came out [of Jerusalem], they found a man … Simon…. Him they compelled to bear His cross (Mat. 27:32). When did they meet Simon? When they came out of the city. At this point…
Jesus was so utterly exhausted that He (as well as His cross) had to be carried the rest of the way: They brought Him to … Golgotha (Mark 15:22). The term for brought reveals the sever-ity of Jesus’ fatigue: someone had to bear Him to Golgotha; the same Greek term is rendered carry in Luke, describ-ing what Simon did with the cross.
As Jesus reached the crest of Calvary, He knew His cross-bearing would be over in a few short hours. But… There remained yet millions of crosses to be borne by His followers—a cross for each disciple: Jesus said, If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me (Mat. 16:24). So…
What can we learn about bearingour crosses fromthe way our Lord bore the burden of His cross?
Daily Submission Our crosses are submission to the Father’s will. Theburdenofthecrossthat Jesus bore inGethsemanewas thestruggletosubmitHiswilltothatofHisfather;that’s part of what His be-ing human was about. Jesus said that the crosses of His disciples must be borne daily (Luke 9:23); we may not suffer for Jesus daily, but we must submit to Him daily. However…
Before we can bear our crosses, we must deny ourselves. Before the Lord took up His cross out-side Pilate’s Hall, he denied Himself in the garden. When He called us to follow Him, He stated two prerequisite actions which must take place in consecutive order: 1Let him deny himself, and2take up his cross (Luke 9:23). See, if we fill our hands with our own projects and wills, we won’t be able to carry our crosses; as with the cross Jesus bore, our cros-ses are designed so that we must give up everything else to carry them.
The greatest thing about it all is that the burden of our crosses is never too heavy to bear. John wrote, This is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome(1 John 5:3). And… Jesus said, Come to Me all you who la-bor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and low-ly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light (Mat. 11:28-30). So…
Like Simon of Cyrene, we receive our crosses from Jesus who already bore the hard part for us. Our crosses are more like this one: Ours are small & light & have wheels!
Jesus’ yoke is easy: in comparison to the burdens of a life without Jesus, the burdens of the Christian life are light. In exchange for our burden of guilt, fear, and hopelessness, Jesus gives us a load we can joyfully bear. Besides… If we feel we can’t bear one particular daily load, God is certain to send help, even if He has to send someone (like Simon of Cyrene) from 800 miles away.*
The burden of our crosses, then,is nothing compared to the burden that Jesus bore for us. Werewetobear theLord’s cross for one mile, we’d probably never again com-plain about our little inconveniences. Imagine you were Simon: You bear the cross by force; you feel the burden; you hearthemockery;your clothingis soiled by the blood and sweat. You’re the only person in history to literally pick up a cross and follow Jesus! You alone can see from the Lord’s perspective! Now…
Can you walk away from the cross as the same person? Simon couldn’t: he had to learn more about this Man. He found the answer to his questions, and the truth must’ve stunned him that the cross he was forced to carry was that upon which the Son of God died for his sins and the sins of the world. Simon became a disciple, and his two sons after him (Mark 15:21).
Simon was forced to bear the cross un-til he learned who it really belonged to; when he learned that Jesus had borne that cross for him, he was then motivat-ed by love and gratitude to carry his cross for Jesus. Likewise… Were you to bear the Lord’s cross for a mile, you’d never think of cross-bearing asafavor youdofor Jesus;rather,you’d consider it a privilege!
