THE CROSS

The cross. What is it really? Today it is depicted as something common. Department stores are full of merchandise that has been plastered with its symbol across it , from T-shirts to car tags. Jewelers have pounded it into all sorts of finery for us to adorn ourselves and wear. It has become big business and brought much profit to those who have reaped from its economic benefits. But it was never intended to be a lucky trinket or some type of decorative decor. The cross of Christ is not to be profaned by being used as some form of good luck. Wearing it or hanging it in our homes does not bring us good luck, nor does it make us more spiritual in the eyes of God, because we proudly display or advertise to others by our demonstrating some form spirituality with it. Before Jesus died on the cross, it represented one thing to humanity, a monstrous repulsive instrument of death. When Jesus accomplished salvation’s plan by His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave, that old rugged, nasty cross now represents the Grace of God to all mankind. Jesus’ victory over death removed the shame of the cross and made it beautiful and glorious. Everything God wants man to know about Him comes together in those cross beams of His only Son’s suffering.

What was Jesus doing on the cross those six hours, stretched out against the sky? He was thinking about you and me. He had made His mind up in the garden the night before to go through with it, knowing that only He and the Father truly fathomed what was about to transpire over the next few days. There is much more to the death of Jesus on the cross than the visible suffering, terrible pain and private unseen suffering, and the incredible public shame and disgrace of such a horrible death for the Son of God and One who was completely innocent and underserving of what He was to endure.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul tells us about some invisible events taking place outside of this physical realm that we see and outside of our ordinary space and time during the time that Jesus was dying on the cross, he says, …in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him. Col. 1:19-22 He also met fully the broadside of the demonic world, fallen angels, and all the power of evil forces as well, disarming them all completely and guarantying satan’s final destruction in Revelation 5:1-7.

After the cross, the next event in eternity for humanity was Jesus’ return to reenter His body in the tomb just before dawn on Easter morning. When contemplating what the cross really represents in the divine transaction between God the Father and God the Son, in an eternal perspective, Jesus who had known no sin had to suffer the revulsion and destruction of being changed from a perfect man into a loathsome, repulsive creature loaded down with mine and your and yes, the sin of the world, so that even God could not look upon Him. Yes, that was the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made for me and you. He was willing to go through Psalm 22 as predicted earlier in scripture to restore what satan and man had destroyed through sin. God must and had to punish that sin and the only way, was that Christ suffer our punishment as a substitute and bear the full weight of the eternal separation from God, that Divine Justice demands and we deserve. God’s kindness on the cross is meant to lead us to repentance and how great is that kindness, never to be mocked, misunderstood nor taken for granted, but it is however; all the time. Yet, John 3:16 reminds us that, For God so loved us, that He gave us His only Son.  Yes, God demonstrated his love for us that while we were yet sinners, God sent Jesus to the cross to die for us and that those who accept and receive what He did, may reap the benefits of that great sacrifice; even to those that parade its image but have no understanding or idea as to its real purpose. I hope today that the next time you see a cross, it will have a deeper meaning than it ever did before.

Loving on you,

Bren