When I applied to the program to become a deacon some 25 years ago now, there were many things I had to do in order to be considered. One of them involved psychological testing and that included meeting with a psychologist and being shown a bunch of pictures… and then being asked for our interpretation of them. Some were very abstract, like inkblots, while others were pictures of different scenes. I have to be honest – it was a pretty weird process.

I remember that there was one picture of a man wearing some kind of uniform staring out a window, while in the background there was a sad looking woman staring directly at him. My interpretation was that this was a guy who just got called away to war and that his spouse was lamenting this very fact. Apparently, there’s nothing overly concerning about that answer because they let me into the program.

Sometime later, I was talking to a classmate about this exact exercise and he said, and I quote: “I said that it is a picture of a guy thinking to himself, ‘I guess my wife’s not happy that I have decided to become a Catholic priest.’”

What?

I said to him: “You said that? To a psychologist?”

Apparently, there are no wrong answers because they let him into the program too!

But it just goes to show you can look at something and see one thing while somebody else can look at that same thing and sees something completely different.

I can think of another visual that also does that: the cross.

Two thousand years ago, if you walked into a room full of people and said: “write down the very worst things that can happen to you in life”, I bet a lot of them would have written down… being crucified. The Romans knew this and so they used it as an instrument of fear and as a grave warning. 

When his followers heard Jesus say that discipleship meant denying themselves, losing their lives, and picking up a cross and following after him, they must have been horrified. This was one of the very worst things that could happen to someone – to have to confront a hard and heavy cross upon their shoulders.

No… thank… you.

But let’s look at this in a different way. Jesus understands that our lives contain challenges. That we suffer. That this is an unavoidable part of life. If today, I were to ask all of you to write down the very worst things that can happen in your lives, I know full well that there are some here who are living those things right now. Or know someone who is. Perhaps that someone is a person you love very much and so their pain becomes your own. 

Jesus understands that life can throw a hard and heavy cross upon our shoulders. So, perhaps the other way of describing his statement to the disciples could be: I know that you will bear crosses in your lives. So, when you do… come to me. Carry yours alongside of me. Because I do know what that is like.

In the cross, we see the great mystery, the divine, the beauty, the poetry, the symphony, the light, and the hope. This is not fear that we see. And this is no grave warning. 

Instead, it is the way forward for us. In fact, it’s really the only way.

Because he came and lived a life filled with both beauty and love… and profound sacrifice and pain.

He carried a cross. 

When you have to carry your cross… lift it high… and follow him.