November 28

Take up Thy Cross

Carrying His own cross, He went out to The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. — John 19:17 BSB

At first, no one helped Jesus carry His cross. Though He was exhausted from the long night without rest, the brutal scourging of His body, and the agony of His inner suffering, He still bore the cross on His own until His strength gave out. But we must remember that Jesus wasn’t carrying the cross for Himself—He carried it for us. He endured the shame and the crushing weight of the cross so that He could free us from the burden of sin’s curse. When John the Baptist first saw Jesus, he declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” We can say the same as we see Jesus carrying His cross. It wasn’t the physical wood that weighed Him down; it was the mountain of our sins. This is what made Him collapse under the burden and cry out in anguish in Gethsemane and on the cross.

Later, Jesus could no longer carry the cross, and the soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene to help Him. The image of Jesus and Simon carrying the cross together is deeply symbolic. Jesus bore the heavy end, while Simon carried the lighter end. This reminds us that we, too, must share in Christ’s cross. To follow Jesus, we must accept our place under the cross and walk with Him. But we can also see it the other way: Jesus helps us bear our crosses. Every burden we carry, He carries with us, and He always shoulders the heavier part. No believer should feel crushed by any cross when Jesus is there, sharing the load.