The Cross, The Center Of Our Theology

TITLE: THE CROSS, THE CENTER OF OUR THEOLOGY

SCRIPTURE: I CORINTHIANS 15:1-11

We are swiftly moving through the month of March and our walk towards Calvary. All roads lead to Calvary where we find an ole rugged cross. The cross of Christ is the center or ground zero of salvation. It is the crucial point, the place of convergence where everything about the Gospel comes together. If you interrogate Christian faith and ask, “in one word, how does god save sinners?” the response of a healthy faith will be instantly and confidently to pick out the CROSS.

Since the beginning, Christians have identified themselves with the Cross on which Jesus died. And whether it’s carved in wood or etched on our hearts, the Cross is the chief symbol and defining reality of the Christian faith.

Many love Christ as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless him as long as they receive some comfort from him. But if Jesus hides himself, they either start complaining or become dejected. Those, on the contrary, who love him for his own sake and not for any comfort of their own, praise him both in trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if Jesus should never comfort them, they would continue to praise and thank him.

• What power there is in a pure love for Jesus

• Love that is free from all self-interest

• Love that is free from all self-love!

The resounding cry is -- take up your cross and follow Jesus, and you will inherit everlasting life. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way and discipline of the Cross.

• Go where you will

• Seek what you want

• You will not find a higher way

• You will not find a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the Cross

• Arrange and order everything to suit your desires

• You will still have to bear some kind of suffering, willingly or unwillingly

The Cross, therefore, is unavoidable.

• It waits for you everywhere

• No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it

• For wherever you go you take yourself along

• Turn where you will – above – below - without - or with¬in – you will find the Cross

Whenever we say anything about the Cross, we are almost always using a figure of speech called METONYMY.

• A word functions as a Metonym when we use it to refer to something else

• Usually something larger to which it is closely related

When Paul says in GALATIONS 6:14 that he boasts only “IN THE CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, THROUGH WHICH THE WORLD HAS BEEN CRUCIFIED TO ME, AND I TO THE WORLD,” he is using one thing -- a large, wooden object used for executions - to refer to something else -- the death of Jesus and its effect in reconciling us to God. Similarly, when Christians sing songs about the wooden object itself, we are well aware that what we cherish is not just “The Old Rugged Cross” as such, but the Son of God who used that Cross in his work of seeking and saving.

• The Cross means, Christ crucified

• All of this flashes across the Christian mind in an instant whenever the Cross is mentioned

• It’s a ‘Metonymy’

The Apostle Paul understood this. When he said in I CORINTHIANS 2:2 that he “RESOLVED TO KNOW NOTHING ... EXCEPT JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED.” He meant he was focusing on the central point, not that he was ignoring the Resurrection or the Holy Spirit. But Paul leads with the cross.

• Paul started his world-changing message with the Cross

• Paul centered his life-transforming message on the Cross

• Paul knew how to indicate the total reality of God’s salvation, starting at the Cross

• But he also knew how to focus

The early church knew it. The Apostles’ Creed tells a very short version of the life of Jesus, jumping straight from –

• Born of the Virgin Mary

• He suffered under Pontius Pilate

• Was crucified, died, and was buried

For a short creed, that is a lot of emphasis to put in one place. Yet this focus on Jesus’ death falls right in the middle of a creed that teaches the full counsel of the Trinity and of God’s work from --

• Creation

• To the resurrection of the body

• To life everlasting

• The creed has the Cross at its center of all things at its circumference

Charles Wesley knew it. His hymn “And Can It Be” rivets our attention on the sacrificial death of Christ –

• “How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”