Chapter 4 - The Cross -- An Eternal Weapon of Mass Creation That Simultaneously Wrecks, Transforms, and Inspires

I used to credit this line to Dietrich Bonhoeffer but after many Google searches I haven’t found anyone to whom I can give credit for the following quote.  Maybe I dreamed it.  

Whatever the case this quote has informed my journey with Christ and was echoing through my heart and mind as I read chapter 4.  “The bible is a handbook for those being sacrificed.” – Source Unknown

I will likely for all time in this age and the age to come always marvel that Jesus didn’t use the political, social, religious, economic, and military systems of this world to crucify Romans but instead used the political, social, religious, economic, and military systems at His time to be crucified on behalf of Romans, Greeks, me, and all fallen creation. 

As I think about Jesus using the fallen systems of a fallen world to die for us and broken creation, I hear 1^st Peter’s words about the gospel, “Even angels long to look into these things.”

Here’s the whole passage in context:

¹⁰ Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, ¹¹ trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. ¹² It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. I Peter 1:10-12

When I catch a glimpse of God’s heart in the message and ministry and sacrifice of Jesus I can’t help but confess, “Once again I look upon the cross where you died.  I am humbled by your mercy and I am broken inside.”

I am always perplexed and amazed at how God’s mercy (at the cross and in His people) breaks me, humbles me, and yet at the same time inspires & invigorates at the deepest level. 

Looking at Christ on the cross creates in me one of the most unique spiritual and emotional experiences I’ve known in this world for seeing His cross simultaneously and instantaneously pounds into my core God’s promise, “I will turn your mourning into joy.”  At the cross I simultaneously and instantaneously worship Jesus with broken mourning  and glorious joy.   At no other place  than the cross do I feel shame & guilt more piercingly exposed and at the same time at no other place than the cross do I feel forgiveness & acceptance more extravagantly offered.

That crazy, mind bending, soul sifting cross!!! 

The song I quoted earlier Once Again has a refrain that repeats over and over, “Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the cross.” 

After reading chapter 4 that refrain is my prayer, “thank you for the cross. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

To wrap up this post I'll borrow from Darrell Johnson’s borrowing of John Stott’s writings:

“Let John R.W. Stott summarize this understanding of the cross: ‘Of course any contemporary observer, who saw Christ die, would have listened with astonished incredulity to the claim that the crucified was a conqueror. Had he not been rejected by his own nation, betrayed, denied and deserted by his own disciples, and executed by authority from the Roman procurator? Look at him there, spread-eagle and skewered on his cross, robbed of all freedom of movement, strung up with nails or ropes or both, pinned there and powerless. It appears to be total defeat. If there is victory, it is the victory of pride, prejudice, jealousy, hatred, cowardice and brutality. Yet the Christian claim is that the reality is the opposite of the appearance. What looks like (and indeed was) the defeat of goodness by evil is also, and more certainly, the defeat of evil by goodness. Overcome there, he was himself overcoming. Crushed by the ruthless power of Rome, he was himself crushing the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). The victim was the victor, and the cross is still the throne from which he rules the world.’