Shoulder Our Cross

Here’s an ancient Russian legend.

Once upon a time two thieves repented.  They had been partners in thieving and in injustice, and they now sought to make restitution and do penance together.  They were both given the same penance by the monk.  Each was to carry a cross across the desert and arrive at the city to celebrate his conversion.  

Both started out enthusiastically, shouldering their fifty-pound crosses.  The first day they struggled, sweating.  The second and third days were torture; their water supply was getting low, the desert hotter, and their crosses seemed heavier.  The desert stretched endlessly; its horizon blurry, but they plodded on.

Late on the third day, while they rested, one decided to shorten his cross.  It was still his cross, just substantially shorter.  The other decided to thin his out, and he cut it lengthwise.  It was still his cross but mush thinner.  Both were more manageable, and the next two or three days went much easier.  But the men were almost out of water.

Finally, they came to water, but it was a rather wide canal that stretched on for miles.  They had been warned that this canal was filed with flesh-eating fish.  They looked at their crosses.  They could use them as bridges.

The first laid his across the canal, but it was too short.  He died in the desert.  The other’s cross was long enough, but when he put his weight on it, it broke and he fell into the water.

And our cross?  Are we changing it, shortening it, thinning it, making our life easier? What will happen when we need our cross to bridge the gulf, to save us from evil and harm?

Easter will very soon come and go.  Are we going to change our crosses?  Substitute them with better, more easy-to-bear versions?  Teresa of Avila said, “We always find that those who walked closest to Christ our Lord were those who had to bear the greatest trials.”  She and the monk’s penance provide us with a challenge.  How close do we want to walk with Christ?

Jesus bore his cross and carried it a long way.  Are we any less capable with Jesus as our example as to how we can bridge the gulf between heaven and earth and to save us from evil and harm?

Deacon David Pierce