At Cross-Purposes

The cross was a terrible reality for the disciples to remember. But as time went by, they came to see that in it, was the activity of God Himself. In some real way, here at the cross, was the juncture of all that was vertical, with all that was horizontal.

When mankind is out of relationship with God and deals only on the horizontal level, we say he is lost...he is a sinner. Daniel Boone was asked once whether he had ever been lost. He replied he had never gotten lost, but was mightily puzzled once for about three days!

And we live in that puzzling world of secularism. Sometimes it seems the world has us trapped. We are like the alcoholic who wants his drink, and yet knows that it will destroy him, and yet he cannot seem to avoid it. He appears to be powerless to conquer it.

"Why doesn't God do something," we say. How can He bear all this mess that the world is in? And of course the answer is that God has done something. He could not bear it longer. He did enter into the fellowship of our suffering and misery. By becoming like us, and in His own body taking the brunt of all the sins and the hate and the malice that the world could offer, He did do something. And the cross is that revelation of God's suffering love. He was able to penetrate the horizontal and to lift mankind into a new relationship with the Father.

Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself." (Jn. 12:32) This is what the cross means.

H. G. Wells, in one of his books makes a listing of the contributions of various countries. To Egypt, we are indebted for the idea of a bed, as well as the basis of much of our mathematics. "As I dress", he said, "I am reminded that my suit was tailored with a needle which came out of the earliest civilizations of Egypt." But when H.G. Wells came to another country close by, he affirmed, "Nothing important happened in Palestine."

"Is that so?" Christians answer. Something did happen in Palestine that has changed the course of the world. A power was released there from a cross. It was a quiet kind of power that ever since, sent men and women scurrying here and there to proclaim the unsearchable riches of God. There was enough power here to stop a Saul dead in his tracks, and make him different. There was enough power there to change an Augustine from a dissolute man, filled with passion and sin, to a saint. Enough power here, to fill up homes all over the world, with the glow of Christ, so that people go out and lead different lives. Here are people who think differently, work differently, and forgive differently. Isn't this the real test of the cross...not that it comes down upon the world, with some earth‑shaking force to destroy evil, but that it comes up through the world with changed and redeemed lives.

One man confessed, "My life is still full of sound and fury, but since Calvary, I know it signifies something." Not, "at cross‑purposes" now, but with a purpose because of the cross. Life has meaning now. I am not always sure exactly how it happened, but I believe it is because of that cross.