Romancing the Cross?

Have you ever caught yourself listening to a familiar song and then realizing that the lyrics suddenly do not set well with you? This past weekend, as my wife and I were enjoying a morning drive to Starbucks, we were listening to a song that described a person’s response to the experience of the cross. As the music beautifully set the tone for the song, my wife spoke up when the lyrics proclaimed (not an exact phrasing, but close enough) “at the cross where you stole my heart.” Immediately, my wife spoke up and said, “Did Jesus really go to the cross to steal our hearts?” I thought about that for a moment and responded, “No, He went to the cross to die for our sin.” This in turn, launched a thought provoking discussion about what we have done with the subject of the cross---in particular, in our understanding of it in worship.

The unfortunate theology that we have emphasized in the world of worship music is in leaving us with a “good feeling” when we think about Jesus on the cross. This sentiment has created a culture in the church that has downplayed the issue of sin and rather than seeing the awfulness of our transgressions, we perceive that the cross is a wonderful place where we can enjoy the warm and cozy feeling of God’s embrace and love. The cross does speak of God’s love for us. John 3:16 announces that “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…” The giving of His Son, however, was not in the vein of “this is a wonderful way I can show how much I love them and want to win their hearts.” Rather, God’s intention is more of “the putrid-ness of your sin is so dreadful that in order for you to understand its magnitude, I have provided the one and only way for you to truly know the extent of my love for you.” As John 3:17 states, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” In essence, God did not send Jesus to leave us to die in our sin, but He sent Jesus to rescue us from the damnation of sin. The modern consensus in our culture appears to view the experience of the cross with such “romanticism:” we being the damsel in distress and our loving knight in shining armor came to the rescue. The reality is that we are more like the “wicked witch of the forest” as before Christ, there was nothing innocent about us---nor was there anything that deserved such as rescue.

Because we have presented the cross as being such as “wonderful place,” we have clouded our vision of the ugliness of sin. We too often forget in our salvation that God still hates sin and the forgiveness of sin is based upon the bloody, painful, and tortuous sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We can too easily sing “O happy day when you washed my sin away,” with a “pep in our step” and miss the actual impact of what remembering the cross should have us reflect upon. I believe the words of the old hymn, O Sacred Head Now Wounded captures a true perspective of what dwelling upon the cross should have us experience:

O sacred Head, now wounded,

with grief and shame weighed down,

now scornfully surrounded

with thorns, thine only crown:

how pale thou art with anguish,

with sore abuse and scorn!

How does that visage languish

which once was bright as morn!

What thou, my Lord, has suffered

was all for sinners' gain;

mine, mine was the transgression,

but thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior!

'Tis I deserve thy place;

look on me with thy favor,

vouchsafe to me thy grace.

What language shall I borrow

to thank thee, dearest friend,

for this thy dying sorrow

thy pity without end?

O make me thine forever;

and should I fainting be,

Lord, let me never, never

outlive my love for thee.[1]

I believe that because of our failure to celebrate the cross with the spirit of humility over the spirit of “romance,” we have lost the impact of sin and grace in the body of Christ. The cross should never make us “feel happy.” It is a place where Jesus died and where provision has been made for our sin to die. We are admonished in scripture to “take up our cross” daily and to be “crucified with Christ” as expressions for sacrificing our lives for the sake of Christ. Although there is freedom through the cross, it will forever remain a place associated with pain, sacrifice, sin, and death. It brought us life but only because death occurred there. My prayer is that the church would recapture a genuine picture of the cross and refrain from cheapening its true impact. As a friend recently told me, “It was the only way” that Jesus could go in order to accomplish what God sent Him to do for us. We would be wise to remember that the cross isn’t a place where God “stole our hearts” but where He cleansed them from the wickedness of sin that once eternally separated us from ever knowing of His great love.

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[1] Text: Anonymous; trans. by Paul Gerhardt and James W. Alexander
  Music: Hans L. Hassler, 1564-1612; harm. by J.S. Bach, 1685-1750

Not a Fan? Thoughts on Defining the Relationship

In Sunday school class this week, we began a new series based on Kyle Idleman’s Not a Fan. After watching the first video segment, I am---for a lack of better words----a “fan” of Kyle’s perspective in revealing what I believe is the single most destructive problem in the church today: the lack to true commitment to Jesus Christ. I won’t indulge in the details of the class or reference the book; however, I will reference one aspect of Kyle’s thoughts which have sparked some thoughts of my own. Kyle asked in the first video segment to “Define the relationship” concerning us and Christ. Relationships go through this process. A couple that dates will someday have to come to the place where they “define the relationship” as it relates to their experience together. How committed do they see themselves being to each other? Are they ready to take the next step? Are there areas that are “off limits” one to another? These are questions that have to be “defined” in order to see where the relationship stands and where it will go in the future. The same holds true with our relationship with Christ. How do we define it? Who is Jesus to us and how much of our lives are we willing to give Him? Answering these questions, however, is part of the problem. The truth is, we have only two options in “defining the relationship” between Jesus and us---will we or won’t we follow?

The unfortunate problem with the church of today as we have “defined” God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the entirety of the Christian faith, by our own “definitions” of what we want them to be. We fail to realize that when it comes to the whole idea of being a “Christian,” it is God who defines what that means. We have false prophets in the emergent church who want to “redefine” things like heaven and hell because it does not fit into their definition of what they think God’s love and grace means. By suggesting that “love wins” and God couldn’t possibly send anyone to hell because of His love, they have diminished God’s sense of justice. For most of us, “love is blind,” but for God, love does not mar His ability to do what is righteous and just (Sorry Rob, but some things just can’t be stretched like springs on a trampoline).

The truth is everything is defined by God----even our very existence. We may think we are the masters of our own fate, but it is God who ordains our steps, declares our purpose, and defines our reason for being alive. Love cannot be defined by us. Sin cannot be defined by us. Even God Himself, cannot be defined by us. We tend to differentiate between the “good things” and “bad things” of life; however, in God’s economy, He defines things like hardship, struggle, pain, and suffering as things that serve as catalysts for “goodness” to result in our lives. If we had our way, we would avoid these things because we see them as being “bad.” Jesus once gave his disciples the worst possible image to imagine and told them that doing this was a good thing. In John 6:53, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Although he was not suggesting cannibalism, he was suggesting to his disciples that which needed to define the relationship----and in their eyes, it was not “good.” Up to this point, people had defined Jesus as the One who would meet their needs, make them feel better, and inspire them with His teaching. This was the Jesus they wanted! This was the Messiah that they defined He needed to be! Jesus submitted to these would be disciples that there is much more to the definition of being a “follower of Christ” than simply receiving the benefits of the relationship with Him.

This problem unfortunately goes back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were deceived in believing that they would be able to be the “definers” of the relationship. Genesis 3:5 states, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan offered them the bait of being able to be the ones who could “call the shots” alongside of God and roughly 6,000 years later, we still find ourselves wanting to eat the same fruit. We open the Bible and we attempt to “define” the things of Scripture based upon our reasoning rather than upon God’s intended meaning. We redefine things like “take up your cross, die to yourself, and go and sin no more” to mean something other than what Jesus actually meant for those thoughts to convey----“you are to no longer live for yourself!” To further, Jesus also added the idea that “unless” we do these things “we CANNOT be His disciples.” Surely, He doesn’t mean that I can’t be a “Christian” if I don’t choose to do these things; after all, that’s “legalism.” I don’t have to do anything to earn my salvation. True, but you have to do something to live in it! And if we’re not going to take Jesus at His word by candy-coating the simple truth that in order to be a follower of Jesus you MUST do what He says, then I guess the only other alternative is that you will remain a “fan” who experiences the game from afar yet pretends to be a contender.