The Magnetism Of The Cross

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Pastor James May

THE MAGNETISM OF THE CROSS

John 12:32, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

The government of Polish Prime Minister Jaruzelski (an avowed Communist and the man who declared martial law in an attempt to crush the freedom seeking Solidarity Movement in the 1980’s) had ordered crucifixes removed from classroom walls, just as they had been banned in factories, hospitals, and other public institutions. Catholic bishops attacked the ban that had stirred waves of anger and resentment all across Poland. Ultimately the government relented, insisting that the law remain on the books, but agreeing not to press for removal of the crucifixes, particularly in the schoolrooms.

But one zealous Communist school administrator in Garwolin decided that the law was the law. So one evening he had seven large crucifixes removed from lecture halls where they had hung since the school’s founding in the twenties. Days later, a group of parents entered the school and hung more crosses. The administrator promptly had these taken down as well.

The next day two-thirds of the school’s six hundred students staged a sit-in. When heavily armed riot police arrived, the students were forced into the streets. Then they marched, crucifixes held high, to a nearby church where they were joined by twenty-five hundred other students from nearby schools for a morning of prayer in support of the protest. Soldiers surrounded the church. But the pictures from inside of students holding crosses high above their heads flashed around the world. So did the words of the priest who delivered the message to the weeping congregation that morning. "There is no Poland without a cross."

In the United States, we have followed the same path as the Socialist/Communist government of Poland: we have removed prayer from our schools or any public gathering other than the church and many churches don’t have prayer anymore; we have removed the 10 commandments from every public building; we have taken down the cross from every public building. The well-armed police of our land will forcibly remove those objects if we attempt to keep them and cast those who try to oppose them into jail cells.

The thing that amazes me is: where are those who will hold up the cross and march to the church to pray in protest of the removal of our freedoms to worship and lift up Jesus Christ and the cross? We call our nation a “Christian” nation and we have less Christianity than the citizens of Poland. The same statement holds true for America, “There is no America without the cross!”

Jesus was at the end of His earthly ministry. He had just entered the city of Jerusalem riding upon the donkey as people threw and waved palm branches in his path. He was welcomed and praised as a conquering hero for many believed that He was come to set up His earthly reign and cast out the Roman occupational forces.

Now Jesus knows that the single greatest event in history of man is about to be happen. All of history, from the beginning of creation and the fall in the Garden of Eden, to the end time events and the last great Battle at Armageddon, will be focused upon the Crucifixion of Jesus upon an old wooden cross.

All throughout history and even in our own time, the central focus of the entire world is upon the cross of Christ! Every news event comes across the screen of your television set triggers a reaction based upon what we believe about the cross. Mankind, perhaps without knowing it, always reacts according their acceptance or rejection of the price that Jesus paid upon the cross. Every action that we take, good or bad, is a result of our belief or unbelief in Jesus as Master and Lord.

Jesus’ words, “if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me” are fulfilled in the hearts and lives of men and women everyday.