October 24, 2007
Carpenters
Years ago I sat in a Catholic hospital wringing my hands during a family crisis. There I met a crusty old Nun, whose nursing skills were generously seasoned with advice. As one believer to another and without mincing any words she said, “You know…we all carpenter our own cross.” Isn’t that the truth? And then I hear Jesus saying, “…and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Matt 10:38 NIV
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Gail;
-----I suppose, in a sense, Jesus built His own cross, for Christ was chosen before the creation of the world. Before man fell from grace He had constructed His cross in the plans for mankind, rebellion, and salvation. Unless those plans were only a response to the rebellion of Lucifer in heaven. In that case, maybe one could see how His cross was constructed for Him as the necessary and the only response to the rebellion. But even this assumes Lucifer’s rebellion was not previously planned by God as well. If it was, then again, He constructed His own cross.
-----But simply speaking, from what we can see on the surface of human activities, Jesus’ cross was carpentered for Him. The Roman’s provided the place and the posthole, the Jewish leaders cut and shaped the beams, and we all nailed Him there. If He made any cross at all, it was the choice to be perfectly good in an evil world.
-----In two ways I die daily. In one way, my cross is carpentered for me. We are created in Christ Jesus to do good works prepared by God in advance for us to do. When I chose to be one of the doers of these good works, I am subjected to the cross made for me out of the prevalence of good works over selfish ones. Thus, I die to my desire to do those selfish works. I live again with my desire for the good ones.
-----But in the other way, I carpenter it myself. I am not perfect. In fact, I am not even nearly perfect. I do idiotic and foolish things. Worse, I fail to learn. And I still have too many moments in which my self obscures the horizon of concerns and desires others around me have. But I rather not think of this form of death as a cross. This form of death is backwards and improper. In the nun’s sense of carpentering it myself, I do. But it is not a cross I carpenter. It is a dungeon I dig. For this death is slower, more agonizing, and more confined to a dark hole. In there can generally be found a bit of nourishment in a cockroach, or a dining upon a rat to forestall the inevitable long enough for the torture to produce a fuller effect. Thank God we have been given a choice of effects. So I choose His mercy and the good works He planned beforehand which shape the cross carpentered for me. Truly we were born to die.
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