Amos Wingo and the Cross

 

I enjoy reading.  I always have and I hope that I always will.   Besides reading the Bible daily, I also regularly read other books or listen to books in the car in my travels.  One of my favorite writers is the late Pat Conroy.   He writes with great description of the people and places of the South.  I have read most of Conroy’s books, but I suppose my favorite Pat Conroy book is Prince of Tides.    Those of you who do not read might have seen the 1991 movie of the same name.   One of the characters in the book is Amos Wingo, grandfather of the main character, football coach-storyteller Tom Wingo.   There is a story in the book that every year during Holy Week that Amos Wingo would carry a cross through the streets of the tiny South Carolina coastal town of Colleton.  Even  when his health was growing frail and he got older, still Amos Wingo would put that heavy wooden cross on his shoulders and carry it through the streets of his town as a statement of his own faith and a reminder that Jesus bore a cross long ago outside the town of Jerusalem. 

I think of Amos Wingo and that story as I read Mark 8: 34-35 where we read these words:

³⁴ Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever wants to save their life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 

The story of the cross in the Bible is the story of the willingness of Jesus to sacrifice his life because of his love for people like you and I and to save us from our sins.   What is it  or who is it that you feel a deep passion about?     What cause or person do you feel a deep love about?   While I am not sure that you and I need to carry a cross during Holy Week through the town or community where we live, taking up the cross is something that is done regularly and willingly.   What higher purpose is your life about?     Have a joy-filled week and God bless.-   Pastor Randy Wall 

PRAYER:     O God,   I give you thanks that Jesus Christ loved me to death.  Help me to live more passionately for the higher purpose of being your disciple;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen.