"This is going to hurt me, more than it does you." These words, belonging to a countless number of caring parents, only begins to describe the agony parents feel when seeing their child in pain. Pain that is necessary. Pain that comes from corrective and loving discipline, via a spanking or a slap on the hand. Pain that a child receives that comes from a necessary shot or medical treatment. It is in our sin-contaminated world that pain and suffering are often necessary in order that good may come. Good that is usually not seen right away, sometimes not for years.

But it is for the good that parents correct their children. For good health and well being parents take their children to the doctor. This truth that pain and suffering are often necessary for good things to come about is also true for the Christian walk. Luke the evangelist, Luke who wrote the Gospel, tells us in our Gospel reading today that a Christian, that is one who confesses Jesus as Christ, Jesus as the Savior of the world - that Christian must suffer. This suffering of the Christian is called the Christian cross. It is called the Christian cross because the suffering that a Christian endures is done in the name of and for the sake of Jesus. The Christian cross is necessary only because Jesus' cross was necessary. Without the cross of Jesus, the Christ of God, Christians would have no cross. But without the cross of Jesus, the Christ of God, there would be no forgiveness. As Christians we focus not on suffering but on forgiveness. For it is because of the Cross-of the Christ of God that there is forgiveness. Therefore,

BECAUSE OF THE CROSS OF THE CHRIST OF GOD, YOUR CROSS IS BEARABLE.

I. The Cross was necessary for Jesus as the Christ of God.
II. Your cross is bearable because of the Cross of Christ.

Jesus commanded Peter to tell no one what he has just confessed. To tell no one until the things that were necessary took place. Jesus knew that Peter would not understand then, but he knew that Peter surely would understand in time. Jesus commanded Peter to say nothing because the Christ of God had his journey to travel and to finish. The journey of Jesus that had been believed and foretold from the beginning of time was beginning. Jesus was in the 9th chapter of Luke turning his eyes to Jerusalem. Turning his eyes towards the cross on which he was to suffer and die. Jesus told his disciples that he must suffer many things, be rejected by the leaders of the Jewish faith, and ultimately die. This was the first time Jesus had ever expressed such a thing to his disciples.

It was necessary for Jesus to suffer and die. The words of Zechariah spoke in our Old Testament reading, long before Jesus' day were being fulfilled. Zechariah proclaimed of Jesus "they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born." Jesus was fulfilling this and many other prophecies concerning his life and death.

Jesus who was both God and man was here to die for the sins of world. God, who is love, could not have left his creation to its own demise and destruction. It is against the very nature of God to do such thing. God has a deep desire for all men to be saved. Saved from their sin. Therefore, because no ordinary man could accomplish the feat of paying the penalty for the sin of all humankind, God out of his great love for the world knew that it was necessary for God himself to intervene. Jesus, true man, born of the virgin Mary, and also true God begotten from the Father from eternity, had to die in order for sinners to live.

So it is for you. You, like Peter, confess that Jesus is the Christ of God. And with your confession, which is done by your very presence here today, comes your very own cross. A Christian cross, a cross of suffering. For like the child who suffers pain in punishment and in healing, so you as a child of God receiving daily forgiveness and healing also suffer daily. For it would make no sense for life to be a bed of roses for Christians here on earth. Your hope is not in how good you can have it here is this fleeting world. But your hope is in the forgiveness that is yours in Christ and the eternal bliss that awaits you in heaven.

What is this Christian cross you must ask? Your Christian cross is not something that is always recognizable. For all suffering, death, or persecution that you as a Christian may encounter is a potential cross. For all you suffer as a Christian could cause you to think that God has forsaken you. It is true that all suffer, believers and unbelievers, but unbelievers have nothing to gain or to loose through their suffering. Bearing the cross also means putting God first in your life. Bearing the cross means self-denial (Matt.16:24). Bearing the cross means, finally, that you must crucify all lusts and evil passions in your heart. And through your various crosses God can work much good. God can use your cross in you life as chastisement, that is refinement. Through trials and suffering God can correct your erring ways. God can help you to focus on what is important in life. And it is through your cross that you turn to prayer and call upon God. That is you can sing along with the Psalmist: "In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears…" (Ps. 18:6). With great sighing and longing you pray in the Lord's Prayer . . . "the Kingdom Come."

But most importantly through crosses you are forced to see your many weakness. You are forced to realize that you can't do it on your own. You are forced to give full reliance upon God's grace. Crosses help you to fix you eyes onto Jesus the author and perfecter of you faith. Through your cross you realize that you cannot by your own reason our strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to him. For God comes to you in your suffering.

It is by the grace of God that you are able to bear your cross. The strength to bear the cross is derived from the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and salvation. For what does temporal discomfort and suffering amount to in comparison with eternal life. Life that is given freely to you in God's word. Life that was given you through the baptismal waters of forgiveness. Life that is so intimately given to you at the Sacrament of the Altar through the body and blood of Jesus. Jesus, whose cross of Calvary makes your cross only a temporal cross. That is a cross that lasts only but a moment when compared to eternity. Eternity with Christ and the forgiveness that is yours.