Jesus did not invent the cross. The Romans already had them. They were especially ready for rival kings. No, Jesus did not devise the cross, He came to it. There is a cross that is built into life; you come to a cross that is already there, it is called “life-the-way-it-is”. There is a dying that comes to us in the course of life from which we should not run. Oh, we can run away if we want to and live a crazy false reality, but in so doing we will run from our own maturity to a death that will be worse than that cross. The cross that Jesus gives is one on which we are to die in solidarity with Him, to self and “life-the-way-it-is”. To embrace the cross in self-denial is to live. There is no living without this dying.
“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” Matthew 16:24 (NRSV)
