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