To take up the cross each day means this, to endure the living of life empowered by this sacred symbol on which are pinned one’s human hope. First some backstory. Like other peoples, Hebrews sought to explain the origin of life. Their spirituality they built upon traditional stories, now written down in the first chapters of Sacred Scripture. Life was paradise on earth prepared by divine word and breath. Humanity in the story is represented by first parents. They begin life in God’s garden, they and their children are destined for everlasting life with one another and with God. There is but one restriction.
They can eat from a tree of life but are not to eat of another tree, a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To disobey will have consequences, the impact of which apparently, they do not realise. They would lose access to the garden and the tree of life. They eat. Then all goes wrong. It is as if an enemy has entered paradise. Described as the most cunning animal that God had made, a serpent begins a deceitful conversation. Did God really tell you not to eat from any tree in the garden? Genesis 3: 1
Eventually God returns, declaring there is a battle. It is a conflict in which woman and man are now participants. They have bought into enmity between the good and the wicked. Spiritual warfare has been inserted into space and time. If they are to be partners in the ultimate victory, woman and man must play their part. Victory there will be, but first pain and hard work. Help is on the way though. There will be a new woman and a new man. Genesis 3: 14 – 15
Fast forward from what this primeval story shows, to another account with special significance in the history of the Hebrews. It too is a story about serpents in a desert in which the Israelites led by Moses and freed from Egyptian slavery are sorely tested. Losing their way and their patience with God and with Moses, people complain: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in this desert?” Things get even worse. Fiery serpents attack them. Many are bitten and die. They plead with Moses to pray to God. Moses is inspired to make a metal snake and put it on a pole. Anyone who had been bitten would look at the bronze snake and be healed. Numbers 21: 9
Further forward now to the coming of Jesus. In the last days before his passion Jesus would speak about his being lifted up from the earth. He had already confided to Nicodemus, “As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3: 14
The spotlight has moved from the old Adam and the tree that was part of human disobedience to a new Adam and the wood of another tree, a cross inserted in Calvary hill. There is a sacrifice of atoning obedience made by the Son to our Father, made on behalf of all mankind.
What is achieved by this new man was foreshadowed in the time of Moses in the desert. It was exactly what was spoken to Nicodemus. The Son of Man would be raised up so that all who believe might have eternal life. The serpent on a pole was a means of healing. It remains a logo still used in medical circles. Medics who chose this logo developed insights and scientific expertise vitally important to humanity and did well not to overlook who stands behind it all.
All this was clear to the Apostle St Paul who affirmed, “It is true that through the sin of one man death began to rule because of that one man. But how much greater is the result of what was done by the one man, Jesus Christ. So that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Romans 5: 17a; 6: 6
St Paul spoke for himself and for others too, “All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life. I run straight towards the goal, so that I may win the prize. All of us who are spiritually mature should have this same attitude.” Philippians 3: 10 – 11
Verses from Philippians Chapter 3 afford awareness of the contest and to be on the side of all that is good, ultimately to be placed in what English poet John Milton called Paradise Regained.
Men, even people who have been baptised into Christ, boast about many things. With the benefit of hindsight, Apostle St Paul wrote, I will boast only about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 6: 14
