BURDENS AND THE CROSS [M, 3-26-18]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…

 We take up burdens to avoid the cross.

We don’t know they are burdens at first. Burdens take only a part of us at a time and so they seem easy, compared to the cross. The cross demands all of us, all at once.

The meaning of “cross” is simply giving up all of one’s self to God.

At first burdens don’t seem bad. “Why do people think this is a burden?”

We get so used to them that they are satisfying, pleasurable. But it is the pleasures of burdens that hold us away from the joy of the cross.

It is smart NOT to take up the cross. The cross is hard. The only problem is that all the alternatives are worse. The alternatives are burdens.

 “Finally, the only rational act is love.”

Power is a burden.

Love is a cross.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com