While vacationing in Mexico sometime back, my wife and I attended worship in a church that is served by one of our Mexican minister friends. Following the service, we and too many others piled into a small vehicle to go to our friend's home for some refreshments. In the front passenger seat sat one very slender fellow and on his lap sat his not-so-slender wife. With a grin he turned back to us in the rear and said the Spanish equivalent of, "Look at me; I'm bearing my cross," and everyone chuckled. Except the wife, of course.

Most assuredly, a wife on a lap in a crowded car is not what Christ had in mind when he talked about taking up the cross. Nor did he mean the kind of thing of which people complain — difficult working conditions, aging parents who are no longer able to function, reca…