THE CONTROVERSY OF THE CROSS

Luke, 12:50, I Corinthians 1:18-25

Precious Lord Jesus,

Your cross is controversial.  Many call it foolish.  You call it wisdom.  In Father’s eyes, Your being beaten beyond recognition by a Roman legionnaire, tried and found guilty by an illegal, fixed  court, brutally dragged through the streets of Your nation’s capital, and shamefully crucified on a cruel cross, is really wisdom.  You understood that You must become sin offering for the world, then rise from death to life on the third day.  True wisdom.

For two thousand years the cross has been controversial, and it continues to be.  Believers embrace the cross.  Doubters deny it, or even worse, replace it with a pretend cross that cost Christ nothing, and demands nothing of us in return.  A. W. Tozer wrote, “The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.”

The Jews response to You demanded the sensational, the miraculous. “Heal me!”  “Cast out my son’s demon!”  “Raise my dead child to life!” “Throw Rome out of Israel and reign over us as a political Messaiah!”  “Amuse me!”  “Come down from the cross!”  You were not the kind of Messiah they expected.  You were a stumbling block to the Jews.  Your cross was controversial.

The Greeks responded to the cross with a demand for wisdom and reason, but they could not rationalize the cross.  It made no sense.  Foolishness, they said.

But You did not shun or shirk the cross. You faced it. You fulfilled the prophecies of Scripture given hundreds and thousands of years before Your birth. You came to crush Satan’s head.  You came as the Jehovah-Jireh provision of God.  You provided Yourself as a voluntary once-for-all sacrifice for sin.  “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  “... the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”  “It is finished.”

I recoil from the horror.  In my sinful condition, I am self-preserving, self-protecting, self-pleasing, and self-prospering. You call me to self-denial and to Your controversial cross.

Thank You for this great salvation.  Thank You for going to the cross and dying for my sins.  Thank You for providing for my salvation, holiness, and hope of eternal life.  You are my wisdom, not mere sensation or human reason.  You are my righteousness.  You are my holiness, my sanctification.  You are my redemption from destruction, and You give meaning to life.  I now take up my controversial cross and follow You.

In the Name of my Savior,
Amen.