The cross … is the dying of the old man in us as a result of our encounter with Christ.
The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ, our being one with Him by doing what He would do and have us to do.
When Christ calls a man to believe and live in Him, he bids him to come and die … It is this same death every time - death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man…so that the new man may live and serve God and neighbor.
Only the man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our worldly affections and lusts.
The struggle arises from the fact we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and … the baptism in the name of Christ … means both death and life … dying and living.
Baptism sets the Christian in the middle of the daily arena against sin and the devil … The wounds and scars he receives in the fray are living tokens of their personal participation in the Cross of the Lord …
While it is true that only the sufferings of Christ are the means of atonement, yet since he has suffered for and borne the sins of the whole world and shares with his disciples the fruits of his passion, i.e. forgiveness and eternal life, the Christian also has to … bear the sins, the scars of others.
Such a Christian would certainly break down under this burden, but for the support of him who bore their own sins and the sins of all.
The passion, that is the suffering of Christ strengthens the believer to overcome the sins of others by forgiving them, by giving them to Christ. In this way believer becomes the bearer of other men’s burdens – “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).
As Christ bears our burdens, so ought we to bear the burdens of our fellow-men. This is law of Christ … is the bearing of the cross.
My brother’s burden which I must bear is not only his outward physical needs, his natural characteristics and gifts, but quite literally his sin.
And the only way to bear the sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I share … forgiveness is the Christ-like suffering which it is the Christian’s duty to bear.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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