The Irreducible Cross
TCF Good Friday sermon
March 25, 2005
I found this quote a few weeks ago in an article on a very popular TV preacher. This guy sells tickets to his national tour, and fills 15-20,000-seat arenas with his positive message. In this quote, he describes his own church, generally considered the largest church in the U.S. today.
He says, "It’s not a churchy feel. We don’t have crosses up there. We believe in all that, but I like to take the barriers down that have kept people from coming. A lot of people who come now are people that haven’t been to church in 20 to 30 years."
Singer and author Michael Card recognized this trend in America and even in the church:
Particularly in American Christianity, the cross has become somewhat objectionable. Well-known pastors avoid referring to it in their sermons and on their TV programs because it is “too negative.” Some contend that it is somehow “dysfunctional” to feel that we owe something to someone who sacrifices anything, much less himself, for us. Can’t that become manipulation? Wouldn’t it be better to respond to God for our own reasons rather than because we owe him something?
He writes---Other people are put off by the violence the cross portrays. Shouldn’t we focus instead on the gentler side of the gospel?
I have no problem with trying to remove barriers to faith. Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
1 Cor. 9:22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
In Acts 15, talking to his fellow believers about Jewish rules and regulations, and debating about what should be required of the Gentiles, James said:
Acts 15:19 "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
There are legitimate strategies, plans, to participate with the Holy Spirit in bringing people to Christ, and in removing potential barriers that need not keep people away. In some churches, this might mean something about the church culture, such as men not having to wear suits and ties, women not having to wear dresses to church....that is, people feeling comfortable however they might be dressed.
In other churches, it might mean having contemporary music, rather than a steady diet of hymns. In still other churches, it might mean something altogether different than that.
And in many cases, done with the right intent and focus, there’s certainly not anything wrong with these strategies. But, there are some “barriers” that cannot be removed from churches, even for the sake of reaching people for Christ...maybe especially for reaching people with the whole gospel.
These real barriers, and I don’t want to imply that they aren’t in some way barriers, are there for a vital purpose. Without this particular barrier, we cannot fully understand the good news.
There’s an old adage which goes: “What you win them with, is what you win them to.” I think if you win them with a “gospel” and in this context I use that word loosely, but if you win them with a gospel, which requires you to remove the offense of the cross, because you think it’s a barrier to them coming, I wonder if you’re really winning them to the Jesus which the Bible reveals.
The Jesus we’re worshipping here tonight. The Jesus who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. If Jesus endured the cross, knowing that joy and glory awaited Him, yet knowing that the cross, and only the cross, was the painful, terrible path He must walk to that glory, then why should we think the cross is an insurmountable barrier to bringing people to church?
Would we say to our children that, for example, we’ll take away this difficult barrier of finishing high school because we know it’s painful, hard, and offensive, but we’ll take it away, and you’ll still be able to get a good job when you grow up?
I’d submit to you tonight, as we mark the occasion of Jesus’ death on the cross, that we cannot take down the barrier of the cross.
The most disturbing thing about this preacher I mentioned, the one who doesn’t have crosses up anywhere in his church, is not so much that there are no crosses to be seen in his church, but moreso, that there’s no cross in his preaching.
The cross is offensive. But it’s also the way to salvation. The whole message of the cross is offensive to our natural minds. The whole idea that it takes the death of God incarnate to save our souls is a barrier to many, many people.
But if we water down, or remove this barrier to make it easier for people to step over, to make it easier for them to ignore, or not fully consider the cost, we’re watering-down the gospel message, which includes the fact that Jesus must and did die on the cross.
The Word called this barrier a stumbling stone, a rock of offense. In some passages, it’s the same word from which we get the English word scandal.
Jesus Himself said in Matthew 11:6 "And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me."
Romans 9:33 "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."
Even Isaiah saw prophetically, quoted here in Romans, hundreds of years before Jesus took up His cross, that Jesus, and by inference, the cross of Christ, the way God chose to bring salvation to men, would be a barrier, a stumbing stone, offensive. The stumbling stone, the scandal, the barrier, is Jesus.
1 Cor. 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
So, for us to take away that barrier of the cross, even though perhaps well-intentioned, is to reduce the cross. To reduce how critical it is in God’s plan of salvation, and in our walk of faith.
But I’d say this evening, that the cross is irreducible.
As much as our culture, as much as we might try, as much as we might attempt to remove it as a barrier...as much as the world might like to make it into only a symbol, and rob it of its eternal meaning, the cross is irreducible. It’s irreducible in time. It’s irreducible in eternity.
Unless we embrace that barrier, just as Jesus embraced His destiny on the cross, I don’t believe we can come into the Kingdom of God. I don’t believe we can live lives of sacrificial service to the King.
Unless we consider the offense of the cross, and realize, as the song we sometimes sing says, “I’ll never know how much it cost, to see my sin upon that cross...”
I don’t think we can be really saved.
If we don’t consider the cost, then it says to me that we must think we don’t need the awful price to be paid. If we don’t think the price needs to be paid, how can we accept Jesus’ gift of eternal life to us?
The cross is what it took to save us. To remove the cross, for the sake of removing barriers to the gospel, is not preaching the whole gospel. The cross is not a symbol. It’s much more than a symbol. Not only should we not remove the cross from our churches, but I think we should embrace all it means, all it means in our lives, all it means in history, all it means in eternity.
The cross is the reason we’re here tonight. Not just because we’re Christians, saved by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross...but because it’s important, not just this one day a year, but always, and maybe especially on this day which we’ve chosen to mark Jesus death on the cross...it’s important to remember, and not just remember, but to ponder...to consider...to think about, Jesus’ suffering for us, His horrible, painful death, to purchase our salvation with His blood.
Hebrews 12:2-4 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Here, we have the admonition to first, fix our eyes on Jesus, who endured the cross. Then, we are admonished to consider him... to think about Him, Jesus, who endured.
So we see in the span of two verses that we are to focus on Him, to consider, to think about, to ponder Jesus, who endured the cross.
Most of you know I was raised Catholic. I was an altar boy, went to St. Mary’s grade school, Notre Dame High School. There was even a time before I was a teenager when I seriously considered becoming a priest. That was before I discovered girls, and of course, priests can’t marry.
But as a Catholic schoolboy, we always had Good Friday off of school. There was never a Good Friday when we didn’t attend church. Now, one of the things I still appreciate about my Catholic upbringing, is the sobriety with which we treated Good Friday.
I remember following what we called “The Stations of the Cross.” It was a step by step recounting of Jesus path to His crucifixion. Most Catholic churches had some sort of art depicting these stations.
I also remember many Good Fridays as a boy, when my parents encouraged – even required – my brother, sister and me, to be quiet, and to ponder the suffering and death of Jesus, especially during the hours of noon to 3 p.m. when Jesus hung on the cross.
For years, I’ve been very moved by the thoughts of Jesus’ suffering, by thoughts of the cross. There came a day when I was 16 years old, and I understood this all in a new way, and accepted the gift of salvation from God through Jesus death.
But I appreciate my upbringing, that my family insisted on the holiness of this day. That it wasn’t reduced to just another day off. I really believe this laid the groundwork for my embracing the cross of Christ as the instrument of my salvation.
Did you know that for almost 400 years, the early Christian church never depicted Jesus on a cross? Some of the research I did says that:
"the first known depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus to come from the Christian community was not carved until AD 420 – that was 387 years after the event."
From early Christian art, from the catacombs for example, have come inscriptions, menorahs, anchors, and the then secret but now familiar bumper sticker icthus. We see many events in Jesus life depicted, but never Jesus depicted on the cross.
Michael Card wrote:
"We can only speculate what the reason must be. We might be tempted to think that the early Christians were embarrassed by the cross. But in light of the fact that so many of them were being martyred for Christ, this doesn’t seem likely. What makes the most sense to me is that for many years, the impact of the cross was still too graphic and gruesome. And still too personal. For many of them, crucifixion was less a fact of history than a contemporary horror. Many carried fresh memories of friends and family, some of whom had been used as human torches, hanging from crosses.
For a set of very different reasons, the cross seems to have disappeared from the Christian art and music of our own time. Worse, it has disappeared from many hearts and minds as well. Fewer and fewer of the churches I visit have crosses hanging behind or in front of the pulpit. Fewer songs sing of it. Fewer sermons celebrate it.
Why didn’t they (early Christians) utilize the symbol of the cross? My guess is that they shied away from representing the cross because it meant too much, not because it means too little (as it does today).
The cross is not a symbol. It is the center of the universe, the nexus of history, the most meaningful event that ever took place. Though the world, both pagan and Christian, seems bent on reducing the meaning of the cross, it is irreducible."
So, for 400 years, you never saw a cross in a church. If we keep heading the way we’re headed now, you may not see crosses in many churches in our time, either. But it’ll be for a different reason.
And while for the early Christians, it might have been too graphic, or too personal, hitting a little too close to home, I think for this era of Christians, we need the cross.
We need to see it. We need to think about it. We need to ponder it. Because for many, if not for most, of us, it’s not too personal. It’s not personal enough. It’s not close to home at all. If it is, it is only on Good Friday, or during Holy Week.
So, we’re in a completely different place than the early Christians. While they spoke of it and wrote about it, they didn’t depict it like we do, because it was all very real to them.
They didn’t need to see the cross like I think we do. One of the great services that Mel Gibson did for the church, especially that segment of the church that hasn’t pondered these things deeply, is that he helped make the cross real to us.
Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
How can we understand what this means to us, if we never think about what it meant to Him?
Life Application commentary says:
The cross was an instrument of violent and painful execution. To “take the cross” was to carry the horizontal beam (the patibulum) of the cross out to the site of execution, usually past a jeering mob. In rhetorically strong terms, Jesus describes what all true disciples must be ready for: if they follow him, they must be ready to face literal scorn on the road to eventual martyrdom, for they must follow to the cross. From the moment of faith believers must count their lives forfeit for the kingdom.
When we commit to become followers of Jesus, we commit to become crucified followers of Jesus.
John Piper wrote:
The reason for this is not that Jesus must die again, but that we must. When he bids us take up our cross, he means come and die. The cross was a place of horrible execution. It would have been unthinkable in Jesus day to wear a cross as a piece of jewelry. It would have been like wearing a miniature electric chair or lynching rope. His words must have had a terrifying effect: Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
As much as the world has tried to reduce the cross to a symbol, to a simple piece of jewelry, it is irreducible. But we can reduce its importance again, if we do not choose to remember the suffering and death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Today, the words “take up your cross” don’t seem as sobering as they must have to the early followers of Jesus, many of whom might have seen someone hang on a cross.
But if we think of these things, ponder these things, consider Jesus, fix our eyes on Him, they are sobering words. They mean that when I follow Jesus, the old self-determining, self absorbed me, must be crucified. My old self must be put to death. I must consider myself dead to sin, and alive to God. This is the path of life.
Just as Jesus took the road to Golgotha, making it the path of life to us. If we are to maintain a truly Biblical understanding of our faith, in this era when everything around us seeks to reduce this understanding, we must refocus, regularly, our attention on the cross.
It must become more than a yearly pondering, as we’re doing tonight.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said of grace and the cross:
“How could something become cheap which cost God everything?”
We must live the cross in our daily lives. The cross of Jesus is now, and will forever be, the center of our faith. It’s the source of His unlimited grace for us.
May Paul’s words in Galatians 6 be our closing prayer tonight:
Galatians 6:14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
