Anglican John Stott said, “The cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough to it for its sparks to fall on us.” (Authentic Christianity, IVP, 1995, page 58)
The cross is the great leveler of lives. Levels come in handy. If you need to put up curtains, hang pictures or check the legs of a table, it’s good to have a level. A level speaks truth when we need it. When Aidan was little, Sheryl had asked me to hang a shelf for him. He had been given a little wooden train as a gift and she thought a small shelf would be perfect. Well, I was in a hurry and I thought I could eyeball it. I thought I could just take a glance at the widow frame, use it for my guide, and hang those shelves level—or level enough. Don’t judge! I bet I’m not the only one who’s tried this? You probably can imagine what when I put his toy train on the shelf it simply chugged right off the edge.
Putting a level up make take more time. It may cause us redo some work. But in the end, the level is right, isn’t it? Whether we like it or not, true is true, right is right. And sometimes what we need to hear isn’t what we want to hear. Here are a few truths of the cross that are hard for us to hear.
We don’t want to hear that we are sinners.
We don’t want to hear that our sin was the reason for the cross.
We don’t want to hear that our only hope of standing confidently before God is the cross of Christ.
We don’t want to hear that the shape of the Christian life is a cross.
But true is true. Right is right.
The cross levels our lives. It topples the idols of self-sufficiency and self-importance. No one swaggers like John Wayne or sneers like Sylvester Stallone at the foot of the cross. If you come to the cross you must walk up the hill of Calvary and come up under it. You look up at it. And it, in the end, covers you with its shadow.
The world around us tells us to be reasonable, not radical; optimistic, not realistic. Is it any wonder that St. Paul would write, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18 ESV)
Several years ago during Holy Week I ran an ad for the church advertising the services. It had a picture of the crucified Lord on one side of the ad and on the other it had our schedule for the week. A lot of people liked it and we got a good number of thumbs up. A few people commented with “Amen.” There was one lady I finally had to block because she kept commenting with things like, “No thanks. I could never worship at the cult of human sacrifice.” Funny, but that has been said about Christians since the first century. I’m sure to her the cross was foolishness. But as St. Paul says, “to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
It is the power of God because it is the crucified Christ that wins for us the forgiveness of our sins, makes possible a true relationship with our Father, and enables us to live in the power of the Spirit. One Anglican Bishop said, “Without a firm understanding of the cross of Christ we are like a compass without a needle, an arch without a keystone, a lamp without oil.” (Ryle, Old Paths, p 233).
God has been clear on this—we need the cross. He would not have sent his son to die on the cross if it was not absolutely necessary and if it wasn’t going to achieve that for which it was purposed. We need this level for our lives. We don’t need flattery, we need the truth about ourselves and our God. The cross tells us both.
Throughout history, the cross has stood. It has been truth-telling for over two millenia. Through famines, wars and genocides. Throughout plagues, pandemics, and disasters. In times of prosperity and peace, the cross has stood. And it stands today. It stands to remind us that the world’s brokenness is no surprise to our Lord. It stands to remind us that our own personal sinfulness doesn’t surprise him either. It stands to remind us that sin and death have been decisively defeated by the love and self-sacrifice of the Incarnate Lord.
Christ on the cross shouts across time to remind us, “You can’t make it on your own. I love you. I’ll pay the price you cannot pay, so that you can gain what you cannot imagine…”
John the Apostle wrote this about the message of the Gospel: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10 (NLT)
The cross is the level of our lives. Will you allow your life to be leveled by the cross and the truth of God it proclaims? Remember John Stott’s words? “The cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough to it for its sparks to fall on us.”
Tonight and in the deafening silence of that in-between time now and Easter, I pray we will draw near to the cross. With your heart and mind, linger on the hill of Calvary. Stand in the shadow of the cross. See the wood. Imagine the nails. The thorns. The sacrifice. Recall the words of the Lord’s Supper, that he did it “for you.” There is nothing like the cross of Christ. Nothing in all the world. It is the power of God to us that are being saved.Draw near enough to the fire of Christ’s love that the sparks may fall on you and set you on fire with love for Him.