Following Judah's Lion

The Cross

(Again? No, again and again and foerver!)

I love the cross. It has been relegated to the back doctrinal burner these days, and in some corners treated as something of which to be ashamed. The all powerful, all knowing, and eternal God of the Universe has chosen a simple and brutal cross with which to receive a greater glory than the creation itself. The cross seems so barbaric and so archaic. It stands beneath man’s so called intellectual prowess, and as our technological sophistication increases the cross has become ecclesiastical window dressing. How can it be? How can that one crucifixion be the path, the only path, to eternal life? It just doesn’t make any human sense.

That is just the point. If it made any sense than man would claim he uncovered it through deduction, investigation, and on the strength of his own logic. But God will not share His glory with another. And the Lord was not bound by human reasoning or what would please man’s intellectual sensibilities. What kind of a deity would subject Himself to one syllable of scorn from His own creation? What kind of God would endure a consistent and open rebellion from those He made in His own image?

But further, what God would actually become the likeness of His fallen creation, and still allow Himself to be mocked and beaten? How could that possibly be? What kind of love is this we see? Unimaginable, unfathomable, and beyond all reason and logic - that is the kind of love exhibited by the God-man Christ. I can understand the Biblical theology, and I can understand all the prophecies, and I can understand the very act of crucifixion. But I will never fully understand the nature or the depth of such a display of love, especially when I consider Who He was and who I am.

Now there is no middle ground. There can be no displays of worship and emotion that can be deemed inappropriate and too demonstrative for the cross. In fact, the dry-eyed spectacle that is manifested in most church gatherings, even when the cross is mentioned, is an affront to God and the sacrifice of the Redeemer. There is no greater power than the cross. There is no greater gift than the cross of Christ. Do we desire to know Him and those sufferings, or are we content to treat it as a fact whose time has passed, or worse yet, as an unfortunate incident in the life of our Savior?

The cross transcends all history. It stands as the open portal through which any sinner can by faith walk into eternal life with the Risen Christ. But this cross came with a colossal price. The sufferings of Jesus on that cross were not just the sufferings of a man. They were a mystery, a sacred pain that contained in them the punishment for all mankind. How can God feel pain, and how can God feel and absorb the pain and torment meant for every sinner? Again, a profound mystery. And why would a holy God desire to redeem a fallen race of rebels intent upon having their own way against the way provided by their Creator?

The cross is an enigma to be sure. The sinless suffers for the sinful; the innocent dies for the guilty. And when we say “the guilty” we are not suggesting a misdemeanor here. The human race, collectively and individually, was not an unwilling participant in this universal scandal. We did not make some minor mistake and then return to the path of holiness. We became well practiced in the art of sin and rebellion and even creative in its many manifestations. We reveled in our sin. And it is impossible to fully comprehend the implications of our rebellion. No, we have become monsters of iniquity.

The cross knew all that, and in fact, He who labored upon those Roman planks knew all of it and offered Himself as a sacrifice and a substitute for those very sinners. There must be a greater and more expansive word than “love” when it is used for this cross. How can a man say he loves his new car and then say God loved us upon the cross? It is painfully incongruent. But in reality, in the absence of such a word, the only word than can express God’s sacrificial affection for mankind is the word “cross” itself.

But this cross has nothing that would captivate and allure us in the natural. Think about those planks as they took Christ down from the cross. They were drenched in dried blood with a rust colored hue that revealed just how much blood He shed. Three distinct holes identified the place where His hands and feet were nailed, again opening streams of blood. How repulsive. But there was nothing in that wood that had any power, in fact they may have been used again for someone else.

The power was in the Person and His sacrifice. The power is in the blood. Have you ever seen a major surgery? The sight of blood everywhere is unsettling and can make many squeamish. The same with a major automobile accident or someone severely wounded in battle. Massive amounts of blood flowing from a human form is grotesque. The sight of this carpenter’s son drenched in blood and squirming in pain was a spectacle even to those who were ignorant of His true identity and purpose.

I have seen many a Passion Play and been blessed by its portrayal of the cross, however let us be very clear. All of them are antiseptic versions, however well intentioned, that cannot reveal the horror and the gore of what transpired upon the Place of the Skull. To be sure, Jesus groaned and writhed in excruciating pain as He suffered both physically and spiritually. And while He suffered for the sins of all mankind, this bloody Lamb knew you and me and suffered for us personally. He knew us, He saw us, and this Jesus suffered and died for us - you…me.

Do not pretend to understand it, but also do not keep your emotions and worship in check. We owe Him everything. He dies so that He might become our very life. He that has the Son has life. Without Christ there is no authentic life, just a poor earthly specimen who struts and frets his hour upon the world’s stage, seeking, seeking, and seeking some more ways to fulfill a need that cannot be fulfilled by anything other than Jesus. And finding eternal life is tied up with this cross. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”. All the vain philosophies and all the man made religions of the world have not cracked open another way to eternal life. It is still found exclusively in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as they take down that batter and bruised and lifeless body, they can still hear the echo of His words. “Tetelestai,” It is finished. Millions of gallons of animal blood had been spilled all through the Old Testament, but the door to eternal life and redemption still remained closed. Oh they had pointed to a way, but they were not the way. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins. They were ceremonial band aids, pitiful but necessary representations of a coming sacrifice. But now, as Christ’s body lay dead, the way was complete.

I would like to ask you a question. Would you take your pet dog or cat and slit their throats and watch as they twitched and suffered and died? I recoil at such a thought about my two dogs. And would you do that to your pet in order to set free a criminal who had done much damage to your family? The example is meager when compared to the cross but it does shine a little light on the enormity of what happened at Calvary. The Father orchestrated the entire ghastly spectacle and watched as His Son suffered and died in public humiliation and ridicule. It is almost too hard to imagine.

And do not think that because the Father is God that He experiences no pain and that He is akin to some cosmic computer. It is a glorious mystery to be sure, one into which we can not fully enter. And when the Son looks heavenward and says, “Why has Thou forsaken Me” we are undone. Imagine now not your pet, but your child. You are watching them suffer, and you have orchestrated all of it. And as they suffer in agony, they look straight into your eyes and cry “Why?”. Can you bear to even imagine such a thing? Does it not crush your emotions and cause you great distress, just to think upon it?

The cross. Oh my, what a mystery, what a glory. We may never know, and even in eternity in the presence of the Risen Christ, still bearing the scars, we may forever be learning the depth and width and length of this God Who is love. We must never forget the cross, regardless of how mature we are in faith or how versed we are in Scripture or the original languages. Shame on all of us for allowing the finer points of theology or these unseemly moral battles to take precedent over the majesty of the cross.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride

See from his head, his hands, his feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did ever such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown

O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross
Bids me come and die and find that I may truly live
O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross
All who gather here by grace draw near and bless
Your name

Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all