The Cross and God's Will

Have you ever considered the symbolic shape of the cross? It is made up of two straight beams meeting at an intersection. It is an image of what Jesus did: he identified himself with the will of God and with the predicament of men. He accepted both at the breaking point and the result was the showdown at Golgotha, the place of the skull.

Doing the will of God, not death, was the primary concern of Jesus. In John’s gospel, there is reference to the Father's will “my food is to do the will of him who sent me (the Father) and to finish his work (John 4:34). It was by keeping himself on the path of God’s will that Jesus eventually headed down the Via Dolorosa. It is always that way. We cannot find our crosses by courting heroism or making ourselves unpopular. Any such path bears no resemblance to the path that Jesus took and his example for us. The cross is following an unknown path with a known companion, God. There will be no great audiences to applaud the path we are taking.

How did Jesus discover God’s will? He found it in two ways: by discipline, and by circumstances. In discipline, there was an ordered pattern to his life. We frequently read the phrase, ‘very early in the morning, as was his custom, he got up to pray’. He spent forty days in the desert fasting and praying before he started his public ministry. He even spent the whole night in prayer before he chose his disciples. Out of his constant communion with the Father came a sure and steady insight into what he must do.

Secondly, Jesus found God’s will through circumstances. Though he knew what he was doing, his life and ministry were not a well ordered and predictable program. He would be called here to heal someone. On the way a crowd would follow him, or some other sick person would seek his attention. And Jesus would stop to attend to that person and to teach the crowd. He allowed himself to be interrupted. Much of his teaching was determined by the need of the moment. Thus he was able to see the real needs of the people, to be moved by their plight, and to respond to them as the Father would.

In following the will of God and attending to the needs of people,Jesus begun to cut across the wills of those wielding power. When he rubbed on the wrong side of the powerful, his own cross begun to form and he begun to see what lay ahead. Yet he did not shy away. It is pursuing and doing the will of God, not the cross as such on which Jesus set his whole heart. It led him down the Via Dolorosa.

For most of us, the cross is only associated with our early stage of our Christian life and experience, the moment of conversion. Thereafter we may think of it in the Easter season. But it is not enough to associate the cross with the conversion moment or Easter only. We are to carry it every day of the year, through the rest of our lives; otherwise our witness never touches the real world. In the following passages, Paul writes of the cross:

“Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” Gal 5:24; “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” Gal 2: 20; Colossians 1:24 “Now, I rejoice in what was suffered for you and fill up in my flesh whe is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, the church”

Like Jesus and Paul, every Christian has to discover the way in which the cross is to be transposed into their life. We will not end up on crossed wooden beams. But in lesser ways as we share Jesus mission of reconciling the world to the Father, we have our own crosses to carry. That is Christian reality. Jesus has set the example for us, that we should follow in his footsteps. Do as Jesus did and you will find your cross.

Please share your insights/ comments.