Didn't Jesus die on the cross so that I don't have to suffer?

Now the popularity in the West in Christianity is that you are saved by the cross. In fact I remember speaking with a Western Christian woman one time, and she said to me, Jesus died on the cross so that we don't have to. All of Christianity in the West is very passive. I had a spiritual father who was very fond of saying, western is crossless. It is crossless. And to this woman, she said this to me, and I said, I'm sorry but I don't think that this is true. I said, because 11 of the 12 disciples were martyred, and the 12th one, St John, was tortured, burned, and eventually laid down in a grave and gave up his ghost. So you could really say that all 12 of them were martyred. If it was the case that Christ died on the cross so that we don't have to, why would the saints, why would the apostles, the martyrs, the confessors, the disciples of the seventy, why would they also take up this same cross and endure the same crucifixion? In fact St Nikodemos of Mount Athos has a beautiful saying, and he said, you will enter paradise through suffering, just like our Lord Jesus Christ and all of the saints. No one enters paradise without the cross. We Orthodox Christians are saved through the cross and our participation in it. And I can't remember the saint who said it, but I often think about it. He says the cross of Christ does not make sense when you are looking up at it. The cross of Christ only makes sense when you are being crucified with him and are looking out from the cross.