Tuesday Morning Devotion
John 19:16
16 So Pilate delivered Jesus over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, 17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.
Reflection
Her silver cross pendant was a gift. Weighing a gram, she often forgets it's hanging there around her neck, until she’s reminded by a friend’s remark of its beauty. Perhaps you wear one like it?
Besides a shared shape, the cross Jesus bears could scarcely be more different. A Roman cross used for execution was made of rough wood and could weigh 300 lbs. A strong man could scarcely carry it, let alone one worn to the bone by scourging. The crossbeam would be laid over Jesus’ shoulder, wood crushing collarbone, while the tail end drags along the ground. Jesus gasps under the weight.
Spear in hand, a centurion points the direction of Golgotha, “The Place of the Skull,” some 650 yards ahead. The road’s uphill and dreadfully public. Now outside the Praetorium, Jesus, falling under his cross, becomes a public spectacle.
It’s fitting that our crosses—from necklaces to tattoos—weigh nothing. For we are not built to carry what our Lord did. Indeed, we imitate him by taking up our own cross; but what made the burden upon our Lord’s shoulders so unbearable was not it’s physical, but spiritual, weight: our iniquity. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and Yahweh has laid upon him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
Prayer: Heavenly Father, the guilt and shame of our sin is so heavy; it crushes our spirit. Let us place it upon Christ our Lord, as he carries it—His Cross—to Golgotha. As we see him there, falling under this burden, may we feel our own burden is lifted, but also our hearts overwhelmed with gratitude.
CLICK HERE for the words to the song.
Artwork: Christ Carrying the Cross by Titian, Jesus Falls painting inside the Church of the Holy Cross in Sisak, Croatia, and Arrival at Calvary by Gustave Doré.