A Cross to bear

Determination and simple honesty is the best way to describe one fictional character made famous by Hollywood‘s, “Forest Gump". Many remember that character by his 'gumpisms’ like “Stupid is as Stupid Does,” and “Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you are going to get” In the motion picture “Forest Gump”, the main character becomes famous worldwide when one day he decides to “just start run ‘in.”

Gump runs for three years steady, and in that time becomes famous with people waiting for him to enter their towns, villages and cities. When asked why he started his marathon, he simply states, “I just started run ‘in.” The truth behind what motivated Gump is that he just made a decision, and “..it felt right, … the run ‘in.”

In the summer of 2004 a man by the name of Arthur Blessitt could be seen dragging a 12 foot by 6 foot crucifix along the highways of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. You may remember seeing him followed by his wife in a minivan and thinking, “Why would a man do that?” That summer Arthur Blessitt carried that cross traversing four provinces. But what you may not know is that Mr. Blessitt has bore that cross traversing many countries covering 61,319 km, over the past 40 years.

As a pastor of a small Hollywood church from the early 1960’s, Blessett counselled a cross section of marginal types including hippies, drug dealers, and prostitutes. One evening, according to Blessitt, he was compelled to take the cross off the wall of his building and carry the cross on foot and in doing so identify the message of Christ’s sacrifice on the highways and road-sides. He was commissioned to take the Easter message where the people are. Like the character Gump, he simply and honestly obeyed.

But the most interesting part of this is that Blessitt witnessed throughout the world by re-enacting Jesus’ journey up to Golgotha, the place where the Romans hung and ultimately killed Christ on the cross. In doing so, Blessitt took the opportunity of sharing his faith with all cultures in 315 countries. Fifty-two of these countries were at war at the time. Further, he was arrested and put into jail 24 times. He was threatened before a firing squad in Nicaragua and stoned and beaten in Morocco.

You would think that the resistance to the message of the Cross was the strongest in countries dominated by Muslims, Hindus or Jews. But he found that was not the case.

The worst reception towards Blessitt’s “Cross to Bear” came from the USA. A Country that professes to being founded on Christian teaching and law. In Los Angeles he was choked by the LAPD, threatened with a pistol in Orlando Florida and in Indiana the Cross faced the threat of burning. Even in Canada and Australia he found resistance to his mission. In Montreal he was bluntly turned away by church leaders when he tried to find a secure place to store the cross overnight. In Australia he tried to have the cross secured overnight in a church and after being bluntly turned away and told to leave, the cross found refuge in a local tavern.

It seems that as we approach the Easter weekend, Blessitt’s experiences show that the message of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is too much to bear for many in what were former Christian nations.

In stark contrast, the year was 1988 when American fighter jets bombed the home of Libya’s professed Islamic Socialist leader Muammar al-Gaddafi in an attempt to kill him and his family. Arthur Blessitt had found that his Crucifix bearing journey had taken him to the border of that country. Blessitt, even though an American Christian, entered the soil of an enemy country.

His arrival had been announced to Gaddafi and he was stopped by authorities and given a note. It stated, "To Whom it May Concern: The Permanent Mission of the Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the United Nations attests that Arthur Blessitt is known to this Mission and that he is proceeding on a journey on foot around the world. Thus we hope that he would be provided with all possible help, and facilities."

During his journey across Libya carrying the symbol of Christian faith, Blessitt did not want for anything. He was fed, housed and protected. His mission was respected. When he had carried the Cross from one end of Libya to the other, he was picked up and flown 960 km to meet Gaddafi at the Tubruk Air force Base.

We live in a country where the majority live in comfort. We want for nothing, except objects of excess. We mock at religious freedoms, point fingers at people of faith. We fight to remove religious symbols from lawns of churches, public buildings and schools under the guise of ‘personal offense’. We do this because we are free to express our distain.

In a nation founded on Christian principals, we work to strip our foundation of the very fabric that has guaranteed the freedoms that allow us to chip away at the footings of a moral society. Men like Blessitt are very few and far between. Many may not agree or understand his faith in a Saviour that 40 years earlier put him on a lifelong mission. But his journey tells us something about who we are as a society.

We are people in need of ethical and moral grounding. This Easter, remember that over 2000 years ago, Jesus was beaten, scourged, mocked and hung from a wooden cross by the very people He came to save, you and I.