Jesus' embrace of the cross

Yesterday, when I stepped out of church after Communion, with a fussy baby, I noticed a large table set up in the gathering space with beautiful olive wood carvings.  No one else was out of Mass yet, so I had some time to quietly admire the work, all of it so beautiful.  One piece struck me as particularly special.  It was a tall statue of Jesus, carrying His cross.

What struck me about the statue was the way Jesus held the cross.  His hands wrapped around it in an embrace.  His face, bent forward with suffering and crowned with thorns, wore an expression of gentleness and love.

Our son Luke will celebrate his First Communion in May, so I asked him if he would like to pick out something for his gift.  He smiled, and immediately walked to a small version of the statue I had been admiring before he came out of Mass.  Of course, I said yes to that gift!  I hope Luke carries it with him throughout his life, and that it reminds him how much he is loved, and that he never carries his crosses alone.

My heart ached from the simple way in which this statue proclaimed such a profound message.  Jesus loved His cross.  For, as much as it caused Him to suffer like no man had ever suffered, it also enabled Him to save us.  His sacrifice -- His embracing of the cross -- bridged a gap we never could have spanned on our own.

Jesus loves us.  He did not want the cross, but He took it up willingly because He wanted something more, and this was the only means by which to achieve it.  What was it He wanted?  Us.  Our hearts.  He wants to walk with us through our days, and to be with us in eternity.  Even those of us who love Him dearly often hurt Him, and turn from Him, in so many ways.  And yet He not only took up the cross -- He embraced it -- so that He can stand there at the door of our hearts and knock.  And so that, hopefully, we will open the door, answer "Yes," and let Him in.

My husband and I have been carrying a cross lately.  One I never would have imagined would have been ours to carry.  But here it is, in our hands.  And I find myself asking, "What are we to do with it?"

Run away?  Lash out at the unfairness of it all?  Cower in fear?  Or do our best to embrace it -- to move forward in faith, knowing we do not walk alone, and that "in everything God works for good with those who love him" (Rom 8:28)?

The beautiful olive wood carvings at our church Sunday are from Bethlehem Handicrafts, and can be found online here.  They are made by, and support, Christian families in the Holy Land.  This endorsement benefits me in no way.  I write this simply because their work is beautiful and their cause touches my heart.

Thanks be to God, we have chosen the latter.  Surely, it is His Grace that has enabled us to make the choice.  And it is His Grace that will enable us to walk in it.  We are trusting, or trying to trust, that when He allows suffering, it is only because He knows something we don't.  He knows what we need to be pruned and led ever closer to His heart.  He has a better plan, and we trust in that, even though it means letting go of the plans we thought we had, of the control we thought was ours, and of the comfort in which we imagined we could rest, thinking we knew what our next step held.

Now that our helplessness is so abundantly clear to us, all that remains is to put ourselves in His hands, to rest, and to trust that He Who could carry a cross so gently, will carry us even more gently still.