BASTAZO (To Carry)
WRITTEN BY DREW MATZ
What is the Word?
Life requires responsibility, even more so for those of us committed to following Christ. Along with our faith in his word, we are held to a higher standard, one that asks more of us – one that recognizes that yes, indeed, I am my brother’s keeper. With this responsibility we lovingly hold one another up and carry one another’s burdens – just as we must carry our own cross. The New Testament has much to say about adopting this responsibility to carry, and the word it uses most often is bastazó.
How does the Bible use this word?
The Bible speaks at length about the importance of life together within the Christian community, and a big part of this life together is bearing one another’s burdens. As a verb, the emphasis the scriptures place on this word is in the context of carrying someone else’s load so that they are able to carry on and finish the race. Just as we yoke ourselves to Jesus who carries our burdens, so too do we yoke ourselves to others that they might also walk alongside us.
Where in the Bible?
In the narrative of our Lord’s passion, we can see the weight of the world on Jesus’ shoulders as he bore and carried his cross:
..and he went out, bearing (βαστάζων) his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.
John 19:17
It was more than simply heavy wood that Jesus carried here, but the weight of the sin of the world upon his shoulders. It was all our sickness, shame, and grief that he carried that Good Friday to the place where he would put them all to death in his own body. In this, he gives us an example to carry our own crosses, bearing one another’s burdens so that we might win the crown he has obtained for us through his suffering, death, and resurrection.
Paul also extends this idea into the practical realm when he speaks of the relationships with one another in the Church:
We who are strong have an obligation to bear (βαστάζειν) with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
Romans 15:1
Notice that Paul says that bearing one another’s weaknesses are not optional, but obligatory. Yet, the beauty of the Christian life together is that we all have failings, and thus we can rely on one another for mutual support in times of need.
Pick Up Your Cross
The Christian life is the narrow way – the way of the cross. With joy we continue to bear each other’s weaknesses as members of one body with one faith, one baptism, and one head in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us continue to march forward through life bearing our crosses, in order that we might win over the world through the Gospel.