The Cross
The Cross is a Darkened Doorway beckoning Sinners. It is the Mysterious Interface between Fallen Humanity and the Glory of God - the blood stained rocky road of the Christian Way. The Cross has two faces. The face we can see is Black, Dark, Of Death –reflecting our Sin. The face we cannot see, the side facing Glory, is Resplendent –reflecting God’s Light.
The Cross is about Sin and Redemption; Death and
Life. It is a Pilgramage from Sin and Death into Redemption and Life. All must take up their Cross. We must enter into Suffering before we emerge into Glory.
It is the Promise of Glory hidden. When we
take up the Cross, there is no sense of Victory, only Defeat. To bear the
Cross is to Suffer. There is no comfortable position. The Cross
only shows us our Sin, our Brokenness, our Smallness. Even Jesus cried
out, ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ as the Cross swallowed
him into Death. (Matthew 27:45)
No one submits to the Cross, unless bitten by Death, unless Desperate for Life. Even then, they must first Believe –that Self, has no power over Death, no source for Good, no claim to Eternal Life. And if then, so humbled, the Soul must yet Believe that Glory and Life can only be found in that Darkened Cross –as when the Israelites looked up upon the Bronze Serpent Moses prescribed. They could turn, to that which was Lowly and Raised High, or die. (Numbers 21:4-9)
If the Cross is cause for Hope, it is even more
so a Quandary of Faith -for, the Tree of Life is Dark Mystery. The
Cross is Mystery because its Work is contrary to its Fruit: Dying yields Life;
Suffering yields Joy; Surrender yields Victory; and Obedience yields Freedom.
The Cross is Dark -we neither taste, nor see, nor feel the Saving
Fruit of its Work –we must Blindly Believe we are being Saved...
...As when the Hammer Of God beats the Sword into a
Plowshare (Isaiah 2:4): every blow of the Hammer disorients the Sword;
each painful blow robs the Sword of its Status and Might; each transforming
blow diminishes, with Unrelenting Mercy, everything the Sword once held with
Pride. The Sword is blind to its Transformation. And even if, the
Hammer Bearer should relent a peek of the Plowshare-To-Be, the vision would be
reviled.
What, but desperation, would allow the Sword to
submit to the hammer? What, but Mercy, could arrange such fate?
Dare the Sword expect to understand the Cross? No language of words
can possibly explain -and to experience the Cross only blurs its meaning.
Are we then, condemned to suffer its Inexplicable Blows without the
comfort of Meaning? Was the Son of God spared Darkness in the Sixth Hour?
What mortal possesses such Virtue? What
Sinner can summon this Cross? Who standing, can submit to its Stripes?
“…they were astonished. 'Who then, can be saved?' they asked.
Jesus gazed at them. 'For men, he told them 'this is impossible; for God,
everything is possible.'” (Matthew 19:25)
In Truth, we do not choose the Cross –in Mercy,
it finds us. In Truth, we do not carry its weight –in Mercy, Jesus still
bears its Burden. “Yes, God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal
life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but
so that through him the world might be saved.” (John 3:16-17)
We do not save ourselves –it is the Dark
Mysterious Cross, reaching through time and space, with the Eternal Loving
Blood of Jesus, carrying us -as Shepherd with Lamb against breast. No
matter how Weak, or Naked, or Alone we feel in the Darkness of the Cross, the
Love of Jesus secures us, as surely as Nails to the Wood, until He brings
us into Glory.
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