Listen: “If you get too close to the cross you will end up carrying it.” Let me say that again. “If you get too close to the cross you will end up carrying it.”

This liturgical season of Lent is the occasion when we Christians rehearse the passion, suffering and death of our Lord Jesus. We who follow Jesus ought always to live in the shadow of the cross. Yet also there are specific times when we walk the Via Dolorosa as we deliberately choose a cross – or we have thrust upon us a cross not of our choosing. So I sound this truth, not only as a part of our Lenten pilgrimage, but as a kind of parameter that defines the Christian walk. Let it lodge solidly in your mind and heart. If you get too close to the cross, you will end up carrying it.

Back in early December, Jerry and I were in Jerus…