Jesus Accepts His Cross
(Those of us who have had the privilege and honor of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land always make Jerusalem part of the holy time. There, although the Jewish Temple has been replaced by a grand mosque, we can see the very places we read about in the New Testament, the actions of our redemption through the life, passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many make the way of the cross, the Via Dolorosa, an ancient prayer service with stops at places that commemorate events of Our Lord’s tortuous journey to the place of His execution. Some of the stations, as they are called, are taken directly from the Gospels, some are inferred from the practice of crucifixion, and a few come from the more reliable Christian traditions.)
The second of the stations of the cross envisions Jesus accepting the cross of his torturous death. Most of the representations of this moment that I have seen in various Christian churches are quite sterile. But the scene itself as the Roman soldiers viewed it was gruesome. The Romans used crucifixion for many crimes. The Persians had used it half a millennium earlier, and Alexander borrowed the torture instrument from them. “He is reputed to have executed two thousand survivors from his siege of the Phoenician city of Tyre, as well as the doctor who unsuccessfully treated his good friend Hephaestion.” The Phoenicians and Carthaginians killed convicts in this way, and the Romans followed suit. Jesus, being called “King” by some of the Jews, was crucified for what was essentially treason against the Roman emperor, Tiberius. What Jesus dragged to Golgotha was probably the crossbeam on which His arms would be nailed. An upright or scaffold was probably permanently erected outside the Jerusalem gates, and the New Testament tells us there were at least room for three executions there. Although most depictions of the scene here at the beginning of the Via Dolorosa show a fresh beam of wood, it is possible that the lumber had been used for other executions previously. Jesus would have put His hands over His head and the soldiers would have bound them to one end of the wood so He would bear the weight on one or the other shoulder.
Now Jesus had struggled the evening before this with what He knew to be God’s will for His salvific death and resurrection. Matthew records Him being “sorrowful and troubled,” praying “My Father, if it be possible, let this pass from me, nonetheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt.” So much of His prayer was an affirmation of the Father’s will that it heads up the verses we call the Lord’s Prayer. Tradition among Christians of the Holy Land informs us that a cave near the Garden of Gethsemane was one of the places Jesus taught the prayer to His disciples. A chapel, the “Paternoster Church” is built close to the site on the Mount of Olives. In the mental struggle of Jesus, which St. Luke the physician records was accompanied by hematidrosis (bloody sweat), God’s will won out. When the traitor Judas approached with soldiers from the Jewish council, at least Peter resisted them with swordplay and injury, but Jesus stopped his rash resistance. He was perfectly attuned to the will of the Father.
Some years later, inspired by the Holy Spirit, some Christian penned a hymn that must have become very familiar to churches all over the Mediterranean. St. Paul quoted it in his letter to the Macedonian church at Philippi. The hymn tells that “Christ Jesus. . .though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be tightly held, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, born in the likeness of humans. Being found in human form he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” Death by crucifixion was the ultimate humiliation, the punishment inflicted on slaves like the rebel Spartacus and his army. But Jesus accepted it willingly. He was, in the words of the author of Hebrews, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
In my life, and probably in yours, we have been or are being challenged to take up some cross. It might be an illness, a repudiation by a friend or relative, a difficult Christian ministry, a family emergency. Jesus tells us to take it up willingly and follow Him on His path to Calvary. Can any of us name a better or more loving companion?
