Is life the cross we bear? Is Life the cross Jesus bore? The similarity is uncanny. But our responses to this cross – the way we carry it, the way we curse it, the way we moan about it and in the end the way we die from / of it are very dissimilar.
His life on earth was not his own. Just like ours. It’s the cross we all carry once we come into this world, something we do at others will. We are here not by our choice – We cannot choose our birth nor our death – Just like Him. But the way He carried his cross, with fortitude and love is different from the way we bear ours. How did he do it? He helped his fellow human beings carry their cross, with his words and deeds and lightened his own. He defined and was the definition of love, a definition we still often cannot fathom fully – the how and why of it and some have genuinely tried.
Agreed, we are not divine like Jesus was. He knew what was coming, and he was willing to accept it, because he was filled with divine love. We are not blessed with that gift perhaps. But He knew that and all he asked us to do was ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Is that difficult for us humans to do? It would seem so – It’s not that there is more hate in us because we are not divine, but sometimes it seems there is not enough love within. Love to accept, to endure to help, to give and sometimes even receive. If it is there, we don’t cultivate it, don’t nurture it, and don’t give it away, for we may be seen as weak. The world believes that love is a weakness, hate a strength.
Jesus’ journey from birth to death, was extraordinarily ordinary, yet it changed the world. Born in a manger, amidst the stars and the shepherds, one a guiding light for all those who sought him, with good intention and bad, and the other protecting him, like they did their own sheep, he grew up teaching us and living the meaning of love beyond self. There were no mirrors for ego boosting and no Television or social media in those days to propagandize his message and yet his fame grew exponentially because of what he said and did, and all he did and said was good…
When you are bad, good hurts and they sought to put Him to death so that his good thoughts and good deeds would not ring in their ears or haunt them and they succeeded – they always do. But they did not realise, when good is buried, it is deeply mourned and rises again. You can’t keep a good man down is the saying. And that’s exactly what happened and in it lies the lesson humanity must learn.
He has taken his rightful place up above and watches the mayhem, the suffering, the exploitation, the occasional acts of love and generally and the way we carry our Cross. He knows it’s not easy. He has been through it all and tells each one of us – I am there to help, but love one another as I have loved you and all we do is ask – Who do you think you are? Just like they did back then.
During his life on earth, many loved him and many hated or were indifferent to Him as they are to each one of us too. And when he was put to death, a most painful death by all accounts, he was again mocked and helped by so many – some willingly – women of Jerusalem, Veronica and passers by, and people like Simon of Cyrene, who was unwittingly drawn to help him in his journey to death. There are those who condemned him to death for selfish reasons – because they felt threatened, though He was not threatening in any way – and those like Pilate, who believed he was innocent but did nothing to prevent his death, only hastened it due to public pressure and his own future. There is an uncanny resemblance with our lives – there are those that send us to our deaths, those who mock, those that help willing or unwittingly and those that deny us.
The lesson we can learn from His life and ours, is that life is indeed a cross we carry. Each one of us. It’s not ours to end, because it was not ours to start with. The secret is to help one another carry their cross through love, kindness and kinship – then and only then can we lighten our burden. Death is certain, but the journey can be a walk on water, and its end need not be a relief we constantly seek. There is no need of miracles for that, no need for fame, no need for the extraordinary. Just see good, be good and do good and you will rise whenever and wherever you fall. After all you can’t keep a good man down, no matter how hard you try. History has proved it.
