Following Judah's Lion

The Cross

We live in an age of great technological advances, amazing discoveries, and more sophisticated levels of knowledge. In less than one hundred years astronomers have gone from believing in one galaxy (ours) to hundreds of billions of galaxies. In less than one hundred years the discovery of antibiotics have saved millions of lives. In less than one hundred years we have postulated both General Relativity as well as Quantum Mechanics. We now routinely transplant hearts, eyes, other organs, and even faces. America alone uses 500 millions gallons of gasoline every day. There are nearly 2 billion cell phone subscribers world wide. Men have walked the face of the Moon, and our machines have visited all the planets. The leap in information during the last one hundred years is beyond imagination.

But in the midst of all this technology and the actual tsunami of knowledge, we are faced with the one constant reality that looms over all of mankind - what happens when a person dies? Mankind would trade almost everything to know the answer to that question. But that question has lived within the hearts of men and women since Adam and Eve walked upon the Earth. The more wealth man accumulates, the more he seeks to lengthen his years. Better health care, more vitamins, exercise, and all sorts of ways to both lengthen and enhance our lives is in direct proportion to our level of opulence.

Death still stalks the entire human race. Everyone dies - the rich rock star to the poor widow, the young politician to the old construction worker, the aerobics instructor to the couch potato, the billionaire to the Darfur infant - all will die. We should all help feed the poor and minister to the destitute and needy, but all we do, all doctors do, is prolong life and stave off the inevitable. Death is patient and relentless. You may cause it some pause, but it still awaits that which it knows will one day be his. No exceptions. All of us are heading for death.

Mankind has attempted to suggest some life recycling process called reincarnation, and others suggest that through levels of knowledge men can attain immortality. And in an attempt to lesson the fear of death, even Christian pastors and teachers are offering saccharine words of false hope that imply, or openly suggest, that everyone will enjoy a blissful eternity regardless of their religious beliefs. The subject of hell is considered outdated and unsophisticated in the modern day spiritual parlance. But if, as the Scriptures teach, there is a hell, then the current shift in teaching and preaching is a diabolical deception perpetrated by the one for whom hell was originally made. We should take no joy in hell, but we should also not soften God’s truth to soothe unsuspecting consciences.

Of course it sounds so Dante-esque and so science fiction, but may I suggest something in response to that thought process? The spirit world operates in an eternal reality that is a billion times more tangible and real and is experienced perfectly by those already abiding in it. I do not believe that heaven’s gates are made of oyster spit or that its streets are made of real gold. I believe those word pictures are just understandable looking glasses into a realm which can never be accurately revealed by mere words. Even the Apostle Paul had no words for what he saw. And I also believe that the words which describe hell are poor definitions of what awaits those who will suffer the second death. Darkness and gnashing of teeth - fire and brimstone - worms and suffering, are just a few literary devices meant to convey a reality that is a million times more savage and obscenely unpleasant than any human words can convey.

Think on this: If hell is indeed an eternal reality, and if every sinner who dies without Christ finds hell his or her eternal reality, then what in God’s dear name matters more than the gospel? Of course it is extremely difficult to emotionally maintain a passion for directing lost souls out from an eternal path to hell, but we can never do what is being done today by preachers who tickle ears and lead millions into a false comfort which may well cost them their souls. But there still is only one answer and one remedy for sin and its eternal consequences. The cross and resurrection.

Oh it sounds so quaint, and many times the gospel is treated like a doctrinal antique. We think ourselves so advanced spiritually that we no longer need the gospel in simplicity. Heaven and hell? Come on, be real. Those things were for cave men of old, but today we have been able to see things in the Scriptures that preachers in times gone by could not see. The open and simple meaning of the words in Scriptures have now been unraveled to expose all sorts of nuanced principles which spread their wings to include the most unorthodox interpretations as well as other religions. That is what we all desire to hear, but that is not what we all NEED to hear.

The cross can never be diluted or compromised. The glory of that sacrifice must not only be spared the wisdom of men’s contamination, it should be, it must be, held up high and heralded without shame or timidity! The cross has no competitors and it has no comparison. The cross is the only vehicle through which a soul can be redeemed and find eternal life. This is no game of science, and the cross must not bow to cultural changes and intellectual progress. We need to reexamine the cross of Jesus Christ, not to suffer it any changes but to suffer ourselves many deep changes in its penetrating shadow.

The cross has been given over to the theological taxidermists and they have stuffed it and hung it upon the doctrinal big game wall. It is time we rescue it from that innocuous existence and place it at the very center of our gatherings and give ourselves wholly to it. The church must again bask in its glory and give life and voice to reflect its illuminating power to a lost and darkened world! Oh yes, very unsophisticated, so barbaric, such mythology, so stark, so outdated, so over simplistic, and so yesterday’s news.

Gal.6:14 - But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Gal.2:20 - I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I Cor.1:18 - For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Heb.12:2 - Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The cross of Jesus Christ, along with the ensuing resurrection, is the very heart of our faith. But one would think that finances, marriage, success, and a litany of other temporal issues are the essence of what it means to be a believer. Eternity is passé and so out of spiritual vogue. The average believer spends almost no time thinking about eternity, to say nothing of preparing for it. And the cross? It makes for nice jewelry and the occasional sermon reference and is sometimes paraded around as proof of our orthodox doctrinal pedigree. But it rarely is given the place of everyday honor it so richly deserves. But without the cross, doctrinally, practically, personally, and as a model that demands emulation and self sacrifice, our faith is hollow and a form of godliness that denies the actual power.

We understand the earthly particulars of death by crucifixion. Millions perhaps have died in that fashion. And as we consider our Lord’s crucifixion, do we not sometimes substitute awe and profound mystery for a doctrinal acknowledgement, antiseptic and dry, but without the painful spiritual application as it applies to our very lives? The redemptive understanding should bring forth such gratitude and worship, that it should lead to an embrace of that cross which manifests itself in many observable ways. But instead it has been given a place upon the doctrinal back burner in deference to more pressing issues that lend themselves to a more generous and successful western lifestyle.

I speak this to our shame. Shame on us for allowing the cross to become so obsolete and so unremarkable in the congregation of the saints. Shame on us for going day after day without meditating upon that cross with such reverence that it must draw our tears as well as our hearts. Shame on us for making the cross an “easter” pageant relic that is dusted off and presented more clearly once a year. Shame on us for emulating Constantine’s heresy and using the cross as some talisman that may bring us good luck or even help us fare well in war. Shame on us that the cross can be seen so clearly on top of a church steeple and remain blurred and obscured in the lives of those who claim it.

Shame on us, Lord.