Taking Up The Cross

Dear Edinburg FUMC family,

     I have been thinking a lot about the cross—which is to be expected of a pastor during Holy Week. But as we have been walking with Jesus through the Gospel of Luke this Lenten season, I have been turning over in my head Jesus’ call to his disciples to “take up their cross and follow [Him.]” I have been asking myself: what does it mean to take up the cross?

     Perhaps some of us have been taught that carrying the cross means enduring suffering for the sake of THE GREATER THING. Whatever we perceive that greater thing to be. And so, we bear hardship quietly, even when the cost is deep. But I wonder if that’s too small a vision of what Jesus meant.

     You are likely reading is on Easter Sunday, and friends, the cross cannot be understood apart from the resurrection.

If the cross were only about suffering, then Good Friday would be the end of the story. But, on a day like today, we celebrate that it’s not. The cross is not simply about what is done to Jesus—to us—it is about the life Jesus chooses to live: a life of truth, mercy, justice, and love in a world that resists those things. The cross is what happens when that kind of life confronts the powers of death.

     So what does it mean to “take up our cross” in light of Easter?

     It means we take up the way of Jesus—not as passive endurance, but as active participation in God’s life breaking into the world. It means our lives get to be a way God answers our prayer, “May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It means choosing love when it is costly, telling the truth when it would be easier to stay silent, practicing mercy in a world that often rewards indifference. It means aligning our lives with the resurrection life of Christ, even when that puts us at odds with the ways things have always been.

     This Easter season, we will explore what it means to live the resurrection.

 In the weeks ahead, we will follow the Gospel readings and step into the stories of the Jesus’ disciples as they encounter the risen Christ. We will sit with Thomas, who reaches out to touch the wounds of Jesus and discovers that resurrection does not erase suffering but transforms it. We will hear Jesus say, “My sheep know my voice,” and consider what it means to listen for Christ’s voice amid all the noise of our world. We will celebrate Ascension Sunday and wrestle with what it means for Christ to be present with us in a new way. And we will hear Jesus pray that we may be one, just as he and the Father are one—a unity that delights in diversity and holds us all together in one. And—we will be celebrating a very special Festival of God’s Creation on April 19. You will not want to miss it!

     These are not just stories about what happened long ago. They are invitations. The Spirit who rose Jesus from the dead invites us to become people who live differently because Christ is alive. To become a community shaped not by fear or scarcity, but by resurrection hope. To be a people who proclaim, with our lives as much as our words, that death does not get the final say.

     Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed!

     And that means we can live, too.

Caminando in la luz de Cristo contigo / Walking in the light of Christ with you, 

Pastor Sarah