Christianity — the Religion of Bearing the Cross #
…I once saw a beautiful painting entitled The Shadow of the Cross. The Lord, still a Boy, is standing beside Joseph’s carpenter’s bench. He has just finished His work: wood shavings lie scattered on the floor and the bench. The Child—Christ—gazes through a narrow window in the humble room. It seems to be evening: the window is lit with the red glow of the setting sun. And the window’s crossbars, along with the edge of a carpenter’s square hanging nearby, cast a clear shadow in the form of an eight-pointed cross, etched by the sun’s final bright rays.
The artist’s message is clear. He seeks to show that even as a Boy, Jesus already saw the Cross ahead of Him. He knew that His path would pass through the Cross. And He desired that path, freely accepting the burden laid upon Him by the Father. He looked upon life and the world through the shadow of the Cross.
I do not know whether it was the same artist or another who created a painting with a similar idea. Again: the room of the carpenter in Nazareth. Again: lit by the rays of the setting sun. The rough tools of the trade hang on the walls, bathed in the same golden light. Christ the Carpenter is now grown, weary from the day’s labor, and He stretches out His tired arms—casting a shadow across the room. And a woman, praying in the corner—His Mother—seems to recognize in that shadow the shape of the Cross and the Crucified upon it. Christ seeks to rest. But His rest is in the Cross and on the Cross. Only through the Cross shall He enter into the rest of His Father. And not only He—His Mother too sees that shadow of the Cross to come. The eyes of Mary are wide with horror and sorrow. Yet in them there is already a clear and humble joy in submission. She knows that by the Cross her Son must bring salvation to the world, delivering it from the curse of sin and death. And with a heart pierced by grief, she blesses her Son on His path to the Cross.
How moving and instructive are these two paintings. We follow after Christ. And the Gospel calls us to follow Him with the cross. “If any man will come after Me,” He says, “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). It is told of one monk that he fashioned the window bars of his cell in the shape of a cross, so that, as he said, he might “see the world through the Cross.” His thought was the same as in the two paintings—the thought of the Gospel: “Without the cross, we shall not enter the Kingdom of God.”
A Christian must always remember that just as his Leader—Christ God—came to Resurrection and victory over evil through Golgotha and the Cross, so too is there no other path for him. Christian fathers and mothers must, even in the dawning years of their children’s lives, show them the shadow of the cross to come—that is, reveal to them that true human life lies not in comfort or social success, but in building the kingdom of Christ’s truth with Christ and beneath the cross. They must teach that life is not a celebration, but a struggle of love and self-denial.
It is not enough that a man bears the cross of sufferings and sorrows sent to him. This involuntary cross is but one half of the Christian cross. A Christian must also willingly take upon himself the true Cross of Christ—the cross of self-denial, the conscious crucifixion of his own “self” with its passions and desires. He must deliberately open his heart to the grief, the sin, and the pain of his brother. In other words, a Christian must be deeply mindful that it is his duty—by the cross of self-discipline and self-perfection—to prepare his soul for the service of God. And by the cross of self-denial and love, by laboring for the truth of God and for the good of the sorrowing and wronged—the lesser brethren of Christ—to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord in return for His sacrifice on Golgotha.
But why, you may ask, the cross and suffering? Is Christianity really only about the Cross, about the preaching of self-crucifixion and suffering?
Yes—it is in the Cross. Without the Cross, there is no Christianity. But this does not mean that it is joyless and sorrowful. The Christian Cross is pierced with radiant rays of joy. One writer (Leonid Andreev) depicted, as a symbol of despair and terror, The Resurrected Lazarus, blinded by Caesar Augustus. He walks with arms outstretched, also like a great black shadow of a cross; he walks into the darkness of death.
That figure is a symbol of blind humanity suffering without light or faith—a symbol of the “cross of life” borne without faith, without the help of Christ. A Christian also walks beneath the shadow of the Cross—but a different Cross. He is not blind, but a seer bearing the Cross. He walks not into darkness, not into death, but toward the kingdom of resurrection. He knows that the road of the Cross ends in the radiant bridal chamber of the Risen Christ—it leads to victory. And thus he bears the Cross with joy—not as a slave led to crucifixion, but as a standard-bearer, carrying the banner of victory and blessedness.