LUTHERAN CHURCH OF THE MASTER
corona del mar, california
Linda and I traveled to the Mediterranean a few years back and that trip included a stop at Ephesus, the ancient city that is now a field of impressive ruins, ruled over by archaeologists and legions of tourists. Hanging in my church study is a photo I took there (displayed on this page). It depicts two stylized Christian crosses carved in stone, broken and discarded along the edge of an ancient street, the same street the Apostle Paul walked many times as he proclaimed the meaning of the cross among the Ephesians.
I keep that photo near my desk as a constant reminder that now as then, the message of the cross, like those ancient stone renderings, is often cast aside, ignored and forgotten, as people seek after newer, more generous and appealing ways to speak of God.
Paul was faced with the same cross-denying voices in his time. His letters to the Galatians and the Corinthians attempted to re-calibrate errant views of Christ's cross, views which cast the cross aside in preference for alternative views of Christian faith. To such views Paul proclaimed, "I was determined to know nothing among you except Christ crucified."
Nowhere is God more visible to humanity than on the cross. To know the God of the cross IS to know God. For there, in the dying form of Jesus, we see the One whom we have wronged, proclaiming our forgiveness. The cross is not some generic symbol of benevolence or universal love. It was a crossroads in history when the godlessness of humanity intersected with the unmerited grace and mercy of God ('At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly'). To proclaim the cross, therefore, is to proclaim God's judgment on us, the ungodly. No wonder we want to discard it. Every image of the cross is a reminder of what humanity really prefers to do with the Living God!
At the same time to proclaim the cross is to proclaim God's mercy upon these same ungodly ones - upon us. And it is this unmerited grace and mercy, poured out for sinners, that places the cross and the empty tomb at the very center of God's redemptive, justifying work for our sake.
To cast aside the cross, is to cast aside the very heart of God's love, poured out for us. Therefore, Paul's dogged insistence that the cross remain central was not some sort of wooden-headed, theological intransience. Rather, Paul insisted on the cross alone for the sake of it's glorious message. In Jesus Christ, God freely justifies the sin-bound ungodly ones, like you and me!
Grace to you,
Pastor Mark Anderson
