When I survey the wondrous cross

The title of this post is the first line of the favorite of hymn of the man of God, Matthew Bigliardi, Episcopal bishop of Western Oregon. I will never forget how he came to conduct a revival service at my little parish of Saint Andrew on Portland's north side thirty years ago. He was a humble man, yet courageous and bold as a lion in taking captives for Jesus Christ. His letters in the church newspaper read like the New Testament epistles. He knew how to say Yes to God, and No to the world, even when that world, in the form of the Episcopal establishment, smilingly started cornering him for the kill. That he would not ordain women as priests was only one of his aberrations in their eyes. They thought he needed help, so they forced him to agree to the ordination of a bishop co-adjutor, just to help him out of course—just to help him out of a job. Within a few months, he was forced into retirement and sent packing into exile in California, where he shortly reposed. Bishop Matthew Bigliardi, man of God, whose symbol was the honeybee—they were embroidered all over his vestments, with honeycomb in the margins—May his memory be eternal.

Reading the following passage on the taking up of one's cross reminded me of this great bishop. This is what Charles Spurgeon writes about the cross, which I have borrowed from the blog Marks of Authentic Mission. My Christian brother in Northern Ireland, Andrew Kenny, has many other good things on his blog.
Check it out.

Take up the cross, and follow Me.
Mark 10:21
YOU have not the making of your own cross, although unbelief is a master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted to choose your own cross, although self-will would fain be lord and master; but your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and you are cheerfully to accept it; you are to take up the cross as your chosen badge and burden, and not to stand judging it too severely. This day Jesus bids you submit your shoulder to His easy yoke. Do not kick at it in petulance, or trample on it in vain-conceit, or fall under it in despair, or run away from it in fear, but take it up like a true follower of Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; He leads the way in the path of sorrow. Surely you could not desire a better guide! And if He carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire? The Via Crucis is the way of safety; fear not to tread its thorny paths.
Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers, or lined with velvet, it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it is not an iron cross, though your fears have painted it with iron colours, it is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for the Man of sorrows tried the load. Take up your cross, and by the power of the Spirit of God you will soon be so in love with it, that like Moses, you would not exchange the reproach of Christ for all the treasures of Egypt. Remember that Jesus carried it, and it will smell sweetly; remember that it will soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the coming weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness of trouble.

The Lord help you to bow your spirit in submission to the divine will before you fall asleep this night, that waking with tomorrow's sun, you may go forth to the day's cross with the holy and submissive spirit which becomes a follower of the Crucified.

— Charles Spurgeon, man of God (1834-92)