Centrality of the cross

Our text for today:

"Who would want to get in on something where you're miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven?...I believe God wants to give us nice things." —Joyce Meyer

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John Fischer wrote a book in the early 1990’s and revised it in 2001 or so entitled On a Hill too Far Away. In it he notes that the cross is rarely mentioned in Evangelical churches anymore. It is too bloody, a stumbling block to belief, so we dispose of it. After all, we want to be relevant and fill the building.

Michael Card noted in his book of meditations on the cross that people tell him he dwells too much on the cross. It is a stumbling block to people; he should sing about happy things. After all, he wants people to listen to him, doesn’t he?

I rarely hear about the cross in any popular songs; it doesn’t sell well. It is even more rarely mentioned by the prosperity people. Why? It is a stumbling block; it doesn’t attract the crowds. We want to pack heaven, don’t we? After all, our job is to get as many people into heaven as possible, isn’t it? And if we manage to put a few pieces of silver in our own pocket along the way, well that’s the American way, right?

Well, I submit to you that it is God’s job to get people into heaven, not ours. It is God’s business whether something sells or not. It is God’s business whether we are popular or not. We are called to one thing—obedience. If the message of the cross isn’t popular, why should we be surprised? Paul already knew that: “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” I Corinthians 1:23-24 RSV.

As I read through the New Testament, I note that the cross is central to everything Christ did. Once he was resurrected and taken up into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit. Did that change anything? No, the apostles still preach the cross (and get a whipping for it!). The cross retains its centrality throughout the book of Acts, the epistles and on into Revelation, where it is the “lamb who was slain” that is the center of worship.

We are to look “to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 RSV) It will never be a popular theme, it will always be a stumbling block, but to us it is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Bonhoeffer summed it up well, “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Any other gospel isn’t a gospel at all, but a candy coated pill that contains a deadly poison, killing the soul to the things of God. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.” I John 2:15-17 RSV
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