Chauncey C. Riddle
Nov. 1990
One of the strong teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the injunction of the Savior to each person to take up his or her cross. This is clearly made a condition of salvation. This teaching is given in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon, and in the Doctrine and Covenants.
In Matthew 10:38 the Savior says:
“He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.”
The idea is even more emphatic in Matthew 16:24:
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
In the Book of Mormon Jacob tells us: “But behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.” (2 Nephi 9:15–23) In the Doctrine and Covenants, it is revealed to Thomas B. Marsh:
“Now, I say unto you, and what I say unto you, I say unto all the twelve: Arise and gird up your loins, take up your cross, follow me, and feed my sheep.” (D&C 112:14)
It is plain from these quotations that the Savior is our pattern. To take up our cross we must do as he did. The Savior’s cross was given to him of his father. It was something he had to endure to complete his mission on this earth. He bore it faithfully and in so doing he completed his mission to bring salvation to all mankind.
The cross the savior bore was to atone for the sins of each and all mankind. His mission of bringing salvation included the necessity of satisfying the law of justice, to suffer for each infraction of Father’s law which ever had been or ever would be committed on this earth. In one twenty-four hour period he suffered for these sins, finishing the suffering on the cross. The cross upon which he was crucified was not his cross; but it was the symbolic representation of his cross. Thus the symbol of the cross becomes the symbol of the suffering each human being must do to follow in the footsteps of our Master, Jesus Christ.
And suffer we must, even as did our Savior. He tells us that we must bring a sacrifice to him to be saved, that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. The broken heart is doing away with all pride, to come down in the depths of humility, because of our sins. To be contrite means to suffer with—to suffer with our Master. As he suffered for the sin of all mankind, so we must be willing to suffer. Sometimes we must suffer for sins, our own or the sins of others. But some human suffering has no obvious good cause or reason. Some of it simply happens as the result of Father’s omniscient benevolence, and we discover that benevolence only after the suffering is completed. Thus we have crosses.
It seems that every accountable human being who wishes to be saved must suffer. Not every human being suffers his or her assigned cross; sometimes it is possible to avoid it, and thereby avoid salvation. Sometimes the cross cannot be avoided; then the question is, is the cross borne in humility before Father’s will or in angry rejection of him. But it is clear that if we are to be saved we must take up our cross and bear it well. The Savior did not enjoy his cross. He asked that it be taken from him. But when it could not be, he manfully shouldered it and bore it off triumphantly. In this each of us must follow him.
Let us now turn to ten examples of human beings bearing crosses well in Christ.
Friend No. 1 was born with a clubfoot. He was born before orthopedic surgery could cure this problem. So his only course was to suffer it. He suffered it well, through his faith in Christ. He earned a living as a woodworker, raised a fine family, and triumphed. The really hard part was not being crippled all of his life. The worst part was enduring the taunts and the shame his fellows heaped upon him, and especially the many persons who considered him to be demented, as humans are wont to do with crippled persons.
Friend No. 2 was widowed at age twenty-six with four small children in the depths of the Great Depression. She had no money, poor health, no family to help. But she had faith in Christ. She bowed her head and struggled against all the odds to raise those children in righteousness. In abject poverty she eked out a sustenance, bearing the shame of poor clothing and having little but life itself. When her children were raised things were a bit easier, but her health was no better. Still she pursued genealogy, was faithful in all church assignments, was the most dependable person in her ward. She bore her cross well.
Friend No. 3 had a mother who took Thalidomide when she was in the womb. She was born without arms. But she was the soul of cheerfulness and determination. She learned to swim to paint to do virtually everything a normal person would do in school. Though she required help every day of her life, she tried to give something to others every day of her life. And give she did, being an inspiration to all who knew her.
Friend No. 4 was a prosperous professional. Having come from a background of poverty, he was generous withall, enjoying giving his wealth to others that they also might be well off. Then one of his business partners embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars and left him in virtual ruin. He picked up the pieces, held his firm together with sheer grit and a good name, and gradually brought things back from the brink of disaster. The irony of it was that the man who wounded him so badly had done the same thing once before. But the embezzler had asked forgiveness and proclaimed repentance in the first instance. So he was trusted again and became a cross to be borne.
Friend No. 5 was a superb academician and a top university administrator with a national reputation. A faithful Latter-day Saint, he was a kindly mentor to budding professors and anxious leaders. As he approached the climax of his career, he was an obvious choice for the position of chancellor in the university system of which he was a part. But he was passed over and a man with but a fraction of his ability was selected for the position. Patiently he watched the new man struggle, and patiently he tended to his own professional labors, not complaining once. For his trust was in the Savior, not in the honors of men.
Friend No. 6 was the soul of friendliness—outgoing, warm generous in every way. He married a beautiful young woman and they were blessed with four handsome, intelligent children. Oh how he loved his family. But his wife was frigid. After the birth of the last child she refused to let him touch her ever again. He could have divorced her. He felt it was not right to do so. So he suffered his cross, year after year of complete denial of physical affection. He felt it was right simply to bear the cross, to give all the love he could both to his wife and to his children.
Friend No. 7 discovered in his childhood that he was not like other boys. He did not know why, and did not want it to be so, but he could only like and love men. As he became a teenager and it came time to date, he was horrified at the prospect. He was homosexual and dating a girl was equivalent to hell for him. So he did not date. But he knew he was in trouble. He went to his priesthood leaders for help, but very little was forthcoming: they simply did not know what to do to help him. Eventually he came into contact with one of the General Authorities of the Church. This kind man spent hours and hours with him helping and encouraging him. In all of his wild twisting and turnings to shake off this malady, he did not give in to his sexual desires to have physical sexual relations a man. Determined to fulfill the Savior’s pattern, he married and he and his wife raised a fine family. He held many church positions, helped many people, and sought valiantly to proclaim the testimony of Christ.
Friend No. 8 was born to goodly parents, and she was a bright precocious youngster, head of her class all through school, fine athlete, devout Latter-day Saint. Her great goal in life was to have twelve children and to teach every one of them the love of the Savior. But she was six foot three inches tall and very intelligent. Though she longed to marry, she was never once courted. So she lived her life in loneliness, taking her students in school and church as her children, hoping in the savior that in some other world she might be fulfilled.
Friend No. 9 was abandoned by his parents when he was ten years old. They were poor and he was told to go out on his own. With only the clothing on his back, he left home, never to see his parents again. He ate out of garbage cans, slept on rooftops in the mild climate of his hometown. And he went to school every day! He studied hard, though that was hard on an empty stomach. He finally found work and someone who would let him sleep on their floor in the winter. He worked his way through high school, then through college, and became a top government engineer. He married, had a fine family, and how he loved those children. He forgave his parents, found and helped his brothers and sisters, and did great good with his life.
Friend No. 10 had a fine professional career and a model family. Then his wife became ill. The illness was diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. She progressively was debilitated, first losing her strength, then her sight, then the ability to move. For seven years she lay bedridden, and her husband personally cared for her when he was home. He had to turn her in bed often to avoid bedsores and muscle spasms for every night of those seven years. But he did not complain, nor let on that he had lost any sleep. He was attentive and loving, loved his children, and did what was right, bearing his cross in Christ.
Our Savior is trying to exalt each of us, to make us equal with himself in purity, wisdom, knowledge and power. But before he can bestow these blessings upon us we must show that we can be trusted. The way, the only way which we can demonstrated that is to do what he did: to take the cross which Father gives to each of us and bear it, at the same time keeping all of Father’s commandments, our lives are not given to us for pleasure. There is pleasure in living, but to live for the pleasure is to show that we cannot be trusted with the riches of eternity. But if we can be as little children, meek, submissive, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all that which Father sees fit to inflict upon us, then we prove ourselves trustworthy.
There is a plan of salvation. The plan provides the opportunity for each child of Father to prove that he or she is trustworthy. The plan is that each person must deny himself or herself, that is, each must not seek first to please himself or herself, but each must sacrifice personal desires to do Father’s will, to bring to pass his righteousness. This sacrifice involves taking up our personal cross, and while bearing it, do everything within our powerto keep every commandment of God. This means for each of us to be an exemplary Latter-day Saint no matter what troubles or problems we might be called upon to bear.
This is not to say that a Latter-day Saint is masochistic. We do not self-inflict pain and suffering to show our devotion. It is not that easy. What we must do is take the cross assigned to us and bear it with faith in Christ. Sometimes the cross will be lifted by Father: the disease may go into remission, fortunes may change, love might come to the forlorn. But these reprieves are Father’s doing. We do not bear our cross just because Father will soon lift it from us, for he might not. We do not assign our own cross and we should not reject our own cross, just as in the Church we do not seek callings from the Lord nor do we reject them. If a cross is not assigned by Father, we need not bear it. But if it does come from him, and we can know this through the Holy Spirit, then bear it we must or we cannot be saved.
There are two kinds of burdens we humans bear. One kind is a cross: a handicap in life assigned to us by Father which we must bear while keeping the commandments to demonstrate that we love God with all of our heart, might, mind and strength. The other kind of burden is suffering for our own sins, the just consequences of our own choice to sin. Part of being intelligent is not to mix these two, not to confuse crosses with consequences.
To repent is to deny ourselves (to deny the lusts of the flesh). That helps to stem consequences, but does not remove crosses. The Savior’s atonement can remove the eternal suffering of the consequences of sin, but only after repentance. (Even after repentance, we sometimes must continue to suffer in mortality for the consequences of our sins.) To be really intelligent is to bear both patiently and humbly, letting both crosses and consequences be constant reminders to remember the Savior and to repent, thus to put ourselves firmly in the narrow way of total obedience to his commandments until we have endured to the end.
Mortal life is a handicap race. We do not race against each other. Indeed, we can greatly help one another. We race against time, to see if we can learn to keep every one of Father’s commandments while carrying our individual crosses and the burdens of our own sinning before our mortal probation expires. This race is not to the swift. Victory comes only to the humble children of God who are willing to bear all things Father sees fit to inflict upon them.
For any who are tempted to think that this race is too much to bear, the voice of the Master is heard:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)
And again:
“He that will not take up his cross and follow me, and keep my commandments, the same shall not be saved.” (D&C 56:2)