A Reflection on the Second Station – Jesus takes up his cross
John 19:15-17
Pilate said, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king except Caesar.’ So at that Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. They then took charge of Jesus, and carrying his own cross he went out to the Place of the Skull or, as it is called in Hebrew, Golgotha […]
We often speak of the metaphorical crosses we must carry each day, yet here we are confronted by a very physical and painful reality. The cross is the instrument of Jesus’ torturous death, the piece of wood which, in just a few hours, he would be nailed to and hang from, crying out to his Father. This is not a stylised representation above an altar, but a heavy and cumbersome cross that will cause him to stumble and fall as he is forced to carry it to Golgotha.
What then to make of Jesus’ command, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me’ (Luke 9:23)? How did the disciples of Jesus react, knowing of the abhorrent punishment of death by crucifixion, yet not knowing it was a fate their master was to suffer? And how do we understand this today, in light of the cross which Jesus carries? To leave behind one’s fishing nets, one’s family, to do what is difficult, inconvenient - certainly, but to pick up an instrument of death, to take up our own cross?
For there to be an Easter Sunday, there has to be a Good Friday which comes before it. An understanding of what happened on the cross is integral to our understanding of Christianity. Jesus knew of the suffering he was to be subjected to, yet he chose to carry his cross and die for us in this way. As St Catherine of Siena writes, ‘Nails were not enough to hold Jesus nailed and fastened on the Cross, had not love held Him there first.’ Jesus goes to the greatest length possible to reunite us to Him. The cross is the fullest revelation of God’s total self-giving love.
So when Jesus asks us to take up our crosses, he is asking us to give our lives completely, like Jesus did for us on Calvary. When infinite love expresses itself in our finite and broken humanity, it will involve suffering and sacrifice; ‘Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:13). The shape and size of the crosses we carry may vary, but stepping away from this metaphorical level and reminding ourselves of the physical cross Jesus bears, we are reminded of the transformative power of the cross.
Jesus not only carried the cross but died hanging on it - out of love for each and every one of us.
Written for Creative Stations of the Cross at Fisher House - an annual tradition at our Chaplaincy on the last Friday evening of term where students share creative responses to each of the stations.