THE WEIGHT OF THE CROSS

 

I carried my cross to the foot of Calvary,

While you carried yours to the top.

I cried bitter tears over the injustices of my life,

While you bled valiantly for all that was lost.

I carried my hurts like a badge

So scornfully proud and spiritually poor,

While you rose to the heights of your exalted throne:

Perfected, ennobled and infinitely more.

You are so high

And I am so low;

I consent to climb to Calvary’s top,

I consent to be lifted to Thy throne.

 

 

“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). The Saviour’s mandate to the true followers of Christ to deny themselves and be like Him, takes His gospel of obedience to the next level. 

 

Prior to this reference to individual cross, the Saviour spoke to His apostles of His imminent death and resurrection (Matthew 16:21; Luke 9:22; Mark 8:31). Not fully understanding Christ’s mission of redemption, Peter was outraged to hear such talk and began to rebuke Jesus saying, “Lord, this shall not be unto thee” (Matt 16:22,23). Being wounded by the suggestion of His unfaithfulness to Father’s trust of Him to fulfil His earthly purpose, the Saviour’s reply to Peter was forceful and suggestive of Satan’s temptation to evade the sacrifice and suffering that lay before Him (see Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p 364). It was unthinkable to the Saviour that He would not take up His cross and carry it to Calvary. This speaks volumes of His character and integrity, does it not?

 

I have contemplated a lot about something I have noticed this year during my study of the New Testament. The Saviour’s focus on His mission to atone for us and to bring honour and glory to the Father has at times left me breathless and in awe of this man we call Jesus who has become our Saviour, our God and our King. This, above all of His examples He has given us, should be the greatest. Whether our cross is one of denial of appetites and passions and worldly pursuits; or one of avoidance of obedience and good works, that we find difficult to do, our cross should be strapped to our backs every day, never losing focus, to the end of our destination.  If we, unlike the Saviour, fail to carry our cross to the foot of Calvary, He will not help us walk the rest of the way to the top. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Crucifixion by Liz Lemon Swindle)

THE POWER OF ENDURANCE

 

I am amazed at the Saviour’s resistance to many temptations He encountered in mortality to invoke His godship so He could be worshipped for who He truly is. I consider this His greatest trial second only to His Atonement. Consider just three examples:

 

1.     Whilst in the wilderness being tested, the adversary tempted Him to cast Himself off the pinnacle of the temple. How easy it would have been to prove His divinity to the throngs of worshippers below if He had cast Himself down and allowed the angels to save Him. What proof that would have been that He was the Son of God! What a beginning to His ministry it would be have been if people could have seen immediately who He truly was. They would have flocked to Him accepting Him as the awaited Messiah. Seductive as the temptation was, He resisted. (Matthew 4:5-7)

2.     The miracle of feeding 5,000 produced a profound impression upon the masses who saw in Him the awaited Prophet like Moses who would feed them manna from heaven. Not only could He feed them like Moses, but He could also deliver them like Moses. Their recognition of the King that stood before them fanned the fire of the Messianic prophecy.  All the Saviour had to do is take up the sword against the Romans and defeat them with not only the Jews who were ready for the uprising but with His legions of angels. He could have there and then sat on the throne of David as the rightful king that He was. This the Saviour resisted to do. (John 6:3-15)

3.     With the hour of His immense suffering approaching, the ruling class of the people who sought to kill Him demanded He produce a sign from heaven to prove that He was the Son of God. Once again, how easy that would have been for Him to do so and avoid going through the worst suffering imaginable. How easy it would have been to instead assume His role as the God of this earth and all the earths He had created. (Matthew 16:2-3; Mark 8:12)

 

The Saviour was completely devoid of pride and focused entirely on the one true thing that could ennoble His godship, His Atonement. Nothing else mattered. Enduring to the end was the ultimate act that would glorify Him and His name. So it is with us, whether we are here simply to be proven worthy of our final destination or to achieve something of great significance on the way, we must not be derailed because the reward is only in endurance. Endurance is power and that power is in Christ. By virtue of our discipleship we have access to that power. The crown awaits for all who desire it, pray for it and work for it. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Lion of Righteousness by Greg Collins)

THE BREAD OF LIFE

You have fed me from the banquet of Your love

With bread everlasting…….

 

With the exception of the Atonement, there is no sadder time of Jesus’ mortal life than the time He declared Himself to be The Bread of Life. Up to that moment, the Saviour’s popularity amongst the common people was immense and people thronged Him everywhere He went (Matthew 8:1,15:30; Mark 3:8,7:24,8:1; Luke 6:17,12:1) but finding this doctrine too hard to ‘bear’, many of His disciples ‘walked no more with him’ (John 6:66). From the time of this sermon, He was headed for the cross.

 

The sermon of The Bread of Life came on the heels of five loaves and two fishes. By this extraordinary miracle the Saviour ignited the fire of the Messianic prophecy. Hungry for freedom from bondage and oppression suffered for over 700 years, the Jewish nation was ready for deliverance. Having been fed so miraculously, they knew just who would deliver them as they sat on Bethsaida’s hill feasting on the miracle of ‘manna from heaven’. He had to be the one to break the bands of bondage and if He refused to do so they would take Him by force to make Him king (John 6:14,15). They did not expect to be told to ‘eat’ His flesh and ‘drink’ His blood instead (John 6:32-35; 51-58), even if by metaphor. Instead of being miraculously fed from heaven continuously, which would guarantee a life of luxury and ease they expected, they presumed they would be saddled with more laws, forgetting so conveniently the familiar Jewish metaphor of eating for spiritual benefit, to which Christ really referred through His sermon.  And so even the baptised and most converted to the Saviour abandoned Him and thus began the rejection of the common people easily manipulated by the leadership to propel Him to the cross. 

 

Eating the body of Christ as the bread of life extends beyond the sacramental table. It means feasting upon the words of Christ for they will tell us all things what we should do to obtain eternal life (2 Nephi 32:3). We must not only eat but feast, feast with hunger and gladness and eagerness and joy. We must revel and delight in the body that was offered on the altar of sacrifice so that we will never be in bondage to the enemy of all righteousness and we will be able to say, like Peter of old: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life….” (John 6:67,68)…….to whom indeed???

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art by Eva Koleva Timothy)

 

THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF ISRAEL

 

People flocked to Him wherever He went. Whether they recognised in Him the healer or the Messiah, one thing they knew for sure is that He would not turn them away. Following a  rigorous interrogation by Pharisees, Mark records that Jesus retreated into a house near Tyre seeking solitude but He could not deny anyone seeking Him ‘for He had compassion on all men’ (JST Mark 7:22-23).

 

This compassionate heart of Jesus led to feeding immense crowds of people on two separate occasions. When the apostles returned from their first  mission they presented themselves to Jesus to account for all their labours (Mark 6:30). Mark notes that the crowds thronged them so much that they could not find time or place to eat (v31). For this reason Jesus invited them to retreat with Him by ship to a solitary place. When they arrived and Jesus came out of the ship he saw a multitude of people who had run on foot out of all the cities to see Him (v33). Mark records that He was moved with compassion when He saw them ‘because they were as sheep not having a shepherd and He began to teach them…’ (v34). And when the day was far spent He would not send them away hungry but fed 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves of bread and two fishes (Matthew 14:21). As with the first, so the second occasion of feeding 4,000 men beside women and children, who were with Him for three days, with seven loaves and a few little fishes, all because: “I have compassion on the multitude….” (Matthew 15:30-38)

 

In my favourite chapter of Ezekiel,  Jehovah speaks extensively about the shepherds of Israel who had scattered His sheep through neglect and then promises He would find them and feed them upon the high mountains of Israel (Ezekiel 34:2,4,11-16,25,31). Was He cognisant of the promise He made through Ezekiel when the physically and spiritually lame flocked to Him, like sheep seeking their Shepherd, feeding upon the compassion spilling from His soul and turning the high mountains of Israel into pasture hereto before unknown??

 

Compassion rent His godly heart

When He saw His scattered sheep,

Upon the high mountains of Israel

Running to His shelter, for His promise to keep.

A promise He would honour

That His lost sheep He would find,

Upon the high mountains of Israel

That heartless shepherds left behind. 

So His promise He valiantly fulfilled

As His sheep sat hungry on Bethsaida’s hill,

And fed upon the loaves and fishes

That multiplied upon His will. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: I Have Compassion by Greg Collins)