If possible we would like to win it without much effort. We would like to think we could make it to the top on our natural talent. It is one of the great blows in life to discover that if you can t bear the cross, you won t wear the crown. Whether you want to be a doctor or a gymnastics star or play on an NCAA basketball championship team, there s a price to be paid. Every University athletic department now has a weight room a training room.
Athletes often think of it as a torture room.
It is a place of suffering for sake of strength. The path to star-dom is through the training room. Easter tells us that Jesus didn t get to be Messiah the easy way. He had to suffer. The reason this statement is repeated throughout the gospel is that the evangelists wanted Christians to be willing to pay the price of following Christ as a way of earning their own crown.