Readings: Psalm 22:1-11, Isaiah 53:1-9, Hebrews 4:14-16, Luke 23:26-47
Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, April 15, 2022
Have you ever considered what a strange thing it is that the central truth of Christianity is the death of its founder? Our natural reaction to death seems to be to recoil from it in horror, yet here we are on Good Friday contemplating an act of murder upon an innocent man. Why? I can't answer that question for all of you, but I can share three reasons why I focus on the Cross as a pivotal point for my understanding of life.
The Cross reveals;
1. A God who identifies totally with our world
2. A God of awe inspiring, terrible, love
3. A God who is the Savior
1. The Cross reveals a God who totally identifies with the heights and depths of the human condition.
Sometimes I look around at the world and hum along with Louis Armstrong; 'What a wonderful World'. When the sun shines, the birds sing, and you are fit and well, and everything is going O.K... yes... that's nice.
But other times I watch the television or pick up a newspaper and I think, no, life is not beautiful, for many people it seems like hell. Ukraine. The terrible suffering some endure, acts of war, victims of torture and atrocity, starving millions... a wonderful world? Sometimes I think 'You must be joking, Louis, quit singing!'. The natural world is beautiful, but it can be so cruel. The law of the jungle is kill or be killed, predator and victim, survival of the fittest... and that isn't just the animal’s situation but appears to be a part of human life.
I feel in myself a huge tension. That there is within me a spirit which desires the things of this world far more than the things of God's Kingdom, that seeks for my own satisfaction rather than the good of all. Although I claim to follow Christ, I am often painfully aware of my inability to either love God with all my heart, mind, and soul or to love my neighbor as much as I love myself.
But when I look to Jesus, I find One who totally identifies with the human condition. I see how He could express unimaginable joy. How He could welcome a child, could be the life of the party, could love the unlovable, who was tempted in every way that we are tempted, yet remain unscathed. I see in Him joy unstained and unrestrained.
I see also how He became the victim of acts of barbarity and violence and torture, suffered rejection and betrayal, cried out to a God who He thought had forsaken Him, who in His darkest hour had to sweat blood in order to accept God's will for His life, praying in Gethsemane, 'Let this cup pass from me.” I see One who on the Cross was broken and destroyed by the sin of the world.
In Jesus, the Jesus of the Cross, are focused the extremes of life. It's brightest joy and it's darkest suffering. At the Cross we discover a God who totally identifies with our world, the heights, and depths of the human condition.
2. The Cross reveals a God of awe inspiring, terrible, love
In a previous calling I engaged in chaplaincy at one of Europe's largest Children's hospitals, situated at Alder Hey, in Liverpool, England. I had deep admiration for the staff there. They were subjected to such highs and lows of emotion. To see a child, suffer is a painful thing, yet it is such a tremendous joy to watch a recovery.
But the pain in such situations fell most acutely on the parents of the children. How can anybody enter a parent’s feelings as they observe their child traveling through pain or distress? How can you put into words the helplessness and anxiety involved in having to stand by and watch events take their course, for better or for worse?
Scripture tells us that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”
What terrible love is this? Love that permits an only son to suffer and die? If earthly parents feel pain to see their offspring suffer, surely is not that pain also present in the heart of the Father, at the Cross, as the Son of God is crucified?
Can we not hear the tremendous, formidable, terrible, love, which is contained within those simple words, “God so loved... that He gave His … Son”? Where else in life do we discover a love that is revealed with such ferocity and with such intensity?
Love of such tremendous price and cost is surely only offered for a greater reason and higher purpose. Were that not so, such would not be love, but an act of gross, immoral, irresponsibility. The Cross reveals a God of awe inspiring, terrible, love.
3. The Cross reveals a God who is the Savior
Paul states it quite plainly in First Corinthians 15:3 “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins.” Here is the reason for that terrible sacrifice. God in Christ comes to redeem us to Himself. On that cross, through that death, the doorway is opened to fellowship with God and the gates of eternity are flung wide open. The way to life, the way to truth, the way of holiness, the way to joy and wholeness.
Here is God, somehow absorbing all that hatred, pain, and suffering that is in the world, and clasping it to Himself, wrapping His arms around all of it and saying to us, “LOOK – MY LOVE IS GREATER THAN ALL OF THIS!”
On the Cross, we see Jesus bearing all the sin and guilt of the world, as the cry comes from His lips. “It is finished”... words that I take not to mean His mission was over, but that the victory of love had taken place. As we allow the love of God to embrace us, we too can discover the victory Christ achieved on the cross.
As we realize that it is sins like ours that caused His pain, then God's love inspires us to turn from our sins and prepare ourselves to know His love burning in our hearts with transforming and renewing power through the activity of the Holy Spirit.
Today is Good Friday. But the end of the story is not the Cross. We must also travel to the empty tomb. After death we read of resurrection, an event which bathes the cross in an even more glorious and victorious light than ever! But we will save that journey till Sunday.
I began by suggesting it was a strange thing that we should make the cross, a place of death, so central to our faith. I believe it's not so strange, when you consider the circumstances of the man who hung there, that here was God incarnate, here is God in Christ revealing awesome love to God's world, aligning Himself with the most god-forsaken places and people, absorbing into His being all the hatred and evil that is in life, and overcoming it by a greater and more powerful love. For me...
• The Cross reveals a God who totally identifies with the heights and depths of the human condition.
• The Cross reveals a God of awe inspiring, terrible, love
• The Cross reveals a God who is the Savior
Allow me to close with words from hymn writer John Bowring. The story behind these words is that he was traveling on a ship when glancing to shore he saw a burnt-out church on the skyline with only the Cross left standing over the charred ruins. The sight inspired him to author a poem that began “In the cross of Christ I glory, towering over the wrecks of time'
When the sun of bliss is beaming
Light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds more luster to the day.
Bane and blessing, pain, and pleasure,
By the cross are sanctified;
Peace is there that knows no measure,
Joys that through all time abide.
In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o’er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.
To God be all praise. Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J Pratt B.D.
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