A hidden cross for daily wear Along a common road.
Let that be the spirit of our life, and the Christ-Cross we carry shall verily " purify our conscience from dead works, and cleanse us from all sin." ^
The bonds that press and fetter,
That chafe the soul and fret her.
What man can know them better,
0 brother men, than I?
And yet, my burden bearing, The five wounds ever wearing, — I too in my despairing
Have seen Him as I say; — Gross darkness all around Him Enwrapt Him and enwound Him, — O late at night I found Him
And lost Him in the day!
Yet bolder grown and braver At sight of one to save her. My soul no more shall waver.
With wings no longer furled, — • » G. T. Shettle.
472 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
But cut with one decision From doubt and men's derision, Tliat sweet and vanished vision
Shall follow through the world.^
III.
Simon and Christ.
i. Bearing the Cross with Jesus.
1. St Luke tells us that they " laid on Simon the cross to bear it after Jesus." It seems from St Luke's account that they did not entirely remove the cross from the shoulders of our Lord, but so arranged its parts that Simon might " bear it after Jesus." And it is extremely possible that they placed the head of the cross on Christ's shoulder, while the foot rested on that of Simon, so that when the eye of the man travelled along the cross it rested on the form of the suffering Son of God. The burden was thus borne between the two, but the heaviest end still rested on the shoulders of Christ. And that is the only bearable way for any man to bear the burden of the cross.^
*[| De Costa ' offers an interesting explanation of Simon's service. He says that the cross, being ordinarily fastened to the shoulders of the condemned, was not likely to have been unloosed by the soldiers on the way. He is of opinion that Simon was only compelled by them to lift up the cross, which was proving too much for Jesus' physical strength, and to walk behind or beside Him bearing it up.
2. The picture forcefully suggests the vicarious atonement of Christ. For when we look more closely, what is the real fact that takes shape ? We see a sinful man — one of ourselves — bearing the cross to Calvary, yet, when arrived there, once more yielding it up to Christ. So far, but only so far, he can bear that crushing load ; but when the place of death is reached, where man's sin and God's judgment meet and merge together, the human instrument becomes inadequate ; he must resign it
1 F. W. H. Myers, A Vinton. => G. Critchley.
' Four Witnesses, 415.
ST. MARK 473
to Another, and step back into the posture of a spectator only. In this detail, as in so many minute points in the Passion- narrative, a suggestion is given of larger truths than appear at first. It seems to tell us, as if by parable, that the cross did not belong to Jesus by right; for in truth it did not belong to Him at all, it became His by choice. The cross was ours ; a burden of pain, a righteous badge of shame and guilt allotted as our fit portion ; a penalty that in our clearest hours we know was due for each of us : in a word, it was the cross of man. And in Simon we see none other than man's symbolic repre- sentative, by his presence and his service unconsciously declaring that there Jesus took on Himself a chastisement not His own. In that hour we were healed by His stripes. We are typified in the Cyrenian. In visible act he did what we must do in thought and feeling, if the infinite virtue of that death is to avail for us. We too must take up the cross, and in person deliver it up to Jesus Christ, in the sense that by trust and penitent sympathetic imagination we realise that it belongs to, and befits, every sinner, that it stands for the punishment we deserve, and that we should have been abandoned to endure it, had not that great love intervened. Thank God that Jesus took the cro3S from Simon on Calvary ! ^
3. Then another and equally real sense holds good in which we are summoned to perpetuate Simon's act. Not merely is the cross the gateway of the Christian life ; it is its signature and distinctive mark ever after. Vicarious atonement by no means implies that we never have anything to bear. Many people think it does, thereby bringing great discredit on the Gospel; but it is a mistake born of simple ignorance, for no one can help noticing, and feeling the significance of, the fact that in the New Testament practically all the allusions to Jesus as our Pattern are given in direct connection with His Passion. Because He suffered, therefore we suffer with Him. So, again, St. Paul speaks of fellowship in the Lord's sufferings as that after which he more and more aspired ; and in this mixed world there will be no need to manufacture occasions of endurance ; they will meet us in plenty, provided only we do not shrink