Carrying the cross

“All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.” (Ecclesiastes 3:20)

E aster is coming up and I’m wondering what kind of long-term impact Resurrection Day is going to have on the average person that will be in attendance on Easter Sunday. It seems like during Holy Week everybody on social media is a Christian. We don’t really have to guess who is and who isn’t a Christian all we have to do is look up and see who is carrying a cross and following Jesus (Matthew 16:24).

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” If we had an actual cross, like the one Jesus was killed on by our back doors and if we picked it up every day as we went to work, went to the store and went to school I think we would live a different life. You can’t carry the cross and follow Jesus without knowing it and constantly being reminded of what you are doing.

As I gave thought to this idea I thought I couldn’t play tennis or run or play golf or fly fish. It’s not that those things are bad but maybe the cross would keep us focused on what our lives are really supposed to be about. In other words, if you can’t do it while carrying the cross then you can’t do it. You can’t follow Jesus and go dancing at the local honky tonk (sorry - but it would be pretty hard to boogie on down with that cross on your shoulder).

In my Bible, in John 3:16 I have my name written over the word “world.” It says, “For God so loved little Kenny Ansell, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” My point is Jesus came for me, Jesus died for me so that I can live for Him (Galatians 2:20). Jesus is the most serious person I know, and I want to be like Him. He was serious about dying for me, so I want to be just as serious about living for Him.

A few years ago, before our favorite second grade teacher (our youngest daughter Klaire) got married, we bought that busy baby girl an Easter basket. It really wasn’t a basket it was a box with an Easter card, some Stumptown Coffee (really great coffee she couldn’t afford to buy), a candle and a t-shirt that said, “Vacation, Vacation, Vacation' (she was working hard at the time with a full time job at HBU, teaching dance to little girls in the inner city and was getting her MBA so she needed a vacation). I also bought myself a t-shirt that says, “Make Today Matter.” The life, the death, the burial and the resurrection of Christ mattered, and it still matters therefore I want my life to matter. Does that make sense?

He told me to tell you that.