Luke 9:23

“’If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’” Luke 9:23
Christ does not tell man to give all there burdens to Christ. He tells his followers to take up their own crosses and follow. The metaphors run rampant, I love it. “If anyone would come after me,” to follow in the steps of Christ. To take the path the he took. To attempt to follow the path that God has set before each one of us with out slipping. Did Christ slip? A perfect soul in an imperfect body, the soul will always win out over the body. But Christ does not ask us to be perfect. He simple asks us to love unconditionally. “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’" Matthew 22:37-40. The part about the neighbor always gets me. Jesus was a man that loved those around him with his whole hart but at the same time he would let them fall into darkness. Why would he let this happen?
One of my favorite quotes about love is actually from a song by Death Cab for Cutie “Love is watching someone die.” The idea is odd and horribly morbid but I think that it is fitting. In love you ride life with that person through thick and thin all the way to the end. So in a dark sense in love you watch that person die. Christ calls repeatedly for people to simple “Follow me.” he never hid what that meant from them it meant that that person needed to “Take up his cross daily and follow” but what is the a persons cross? Is it the burdens of life? Christ care not about these things. If Jesus cared about things of this world then he would have taken his place on the thrown on Israel. But he took on the life of a poor preacher of God. I feel to see what the cross that we are to take up to follow Christ we should look to that cross that Christ himself took up. Christ took the sins of man. That is quite the burden but then again it is exactly what we humans do naturally. We lift up those that are hurting around us. We try to help them in any way possible. We do this not because we want anything from them in return but because we care for those around us. We feel the pain of those around us and we try to take there pain. But this does not answer what our cross should be. However to me it seems clear. The Cross that Christ is asking for us to carry is one that we are specifically fit to carry. The burden of man is not a weight or even a tax on life. The burden of man is the one thing that makes life sweeter than anything in this world. It is the one thing that makes the sky seem brighter and the one thing that make the dark not as lonely. It is the one thing that I have the hardest time expressing. The burden of man is Love. Love in the highest is what will save human kind from itself. Love, both given and taken, is the only thing that will save my soul.