I venerate Your Cross, O Christ,
and Your holy Resurrection I glorify,
for by means of your Holy Cross
joy has come into the world,
alleluia!
It is good to gaze at the Cross and ask yourself the question “What does this mean”?
THE CROSS IS BEAUTIFUL
It is beautiful because it reveals the depths to which the grace and love of God will go to redeem unto Himself His creation and save it from the grip of Satan, sin and death.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-21)
Notice that God wasn’t reconciling Himself to the world but the world to Himself. He wasn’t the one that turned His back and walked away from His creation, rather creation turned its back and walked away from its creator.
But in relentless love and indescribable grace, the work of salvation begins not on Good Friday but at Christmas, when God Himself enters our world, born of a virgin. He lived in order to establish and inaugurate the Kingdom of God.
The Crown of thorns was his crown, and the cross his throne.
God is revealed in Christ as the one who forgives and reconciles. Father forgive them, they know not what they do.
So, let me ask you this. Where is God on Good Friday? You may think He was absent or watching from afar maybe?
But Jesus said in John 5:19 Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
So where was the Father? Is the father found in Caiaphas looking for a scapegoat? Is he found in Pilate insisting on retributive justice? No, He is found in Christ, hanging on the tree and pronouncing peace and forgiveness not counting their sin against them. Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing. If the cross reveals mankind’s ugliness it also reveals God’s beauty that will save the world.
THE CROSS IS FOR US
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17)
Jesus died for us, not for God.
We were the ones that needed to be redeemed, that needed to be saved from the grip of sin and death and from the power of the enemy. We were the ones who needed to be delivered from our addiction to sin.
He did that by making a way for us to truly know Him, spirit to Spirit. We are the object of His affection and He wanted to demolish every barrier that prevented us from being able to know Him, walk with Him and love Him (this is true eternal life)
And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:11-13)
Through the cross we become part of a revolution. We become part of a Kingdom that rules and reigns with Christ through reconciliation, love and forgiveness. We become partakers of the divine nature and God’s ambassadors of healing, wholeness and reconciliation. This is our work NOW, not in the age to come. We are saved NOW in order that we might be made into the image of His Son, here, now.
AND WE ARE FOR THE CROSS
Jesus calls us to imitate Him and take up our cross. It’s a phrase that has been mis-used over and over again through the ages. Taking up the cross is not dealing with noisy neighbours or difficult in-laws.
Rather it is laying down and forsaking the way of the world, which is vengeance, retribution, judgment, offence, unforgiveness, power and control. We repent (to rethink and turn away from) from those things.
Taking up the cross is the way of co-suffering love. It is the way of forgiveness, of turning the other cheek, of forsaking the right to revenge. It is laying down the right to make our own way, instead choosing His way, even if it means being misunderstood, persecuted or maligned.
This is why the cross is our symbol. We die with Christ and are raised to newness of life in Him. We die to sin and rise to freedom in Jesus. We die to self and learn the justice of obedience.
Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus while before Your face I humbly kneel and, with burning soul, pray and beseech You to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and charity; true contrition for my sins, and a firm purpose of amendment. While I contemplate, with great love and tender pity, Your five most precious wounds, pondering over them within me and calling to mind the words which David, Your prophet, said to You, my Jesus: “They have pierced My hands and My feet, they have numbered all My bones.” Amen.