It’s an old story. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad.
A young soldier fighting in Italy during World War II managed to jump into a foxhole just ahead of a spray of bullets. He immediately attempted to deepen the hole for more protection. As he was frantically scraping at the dirt with his hands, he unearthed a silver crucifix, obviously left by a previous occupant of the foxhole. A moment later, a leaping figure landed beside him as shells screamed overhead. The soldier turned to see that his new companion was an army chaplain. Holding up the crucifix, the soldier cried, “Am I glad to see you! How do you work this thing?” (1)
I suspect that is a pertinent question for many people when they come to the cross: “How do you work this thing?”
We see crosses hung around people’s necks, adorning the walls of the homes of devout people, even worn as tattoos. What does it mean?
Writer Flannery O’Connor says that when she was young her family would occasionally visit a nearby convent. One of the sisters would come out to hug her. Each time the sister held Flannery to her body, the cross that the nun was wearing around her chest would press into Flannery’s cheek and leave its imprint . . .
That’s one cross that made quite an impression. Sometimes, however, you wonder if the cross has made any impression at all.
Did you know that one of the few weekdays when no trading takes place on the New York Stock Exchange is Good Friday? If you go to the Visitor’s Center at the Stock Exchange and ask “Why,” they will tell you that since 1864 the Exchange has closed its doors on Good Friday for “religious reasons.”
Is that out of respect for the cross? I wonder especially since, earlier this year, a federal judge implied he might go easy on two stock brokers convicted of securities fraud. Here is his reasoning. He said he might go easy because they worked within a “culture of corruption.” He was referring to Wall Street. He asked government and defense lawyers to address that point when they write their sentencing recommendations. (2) Can you have a corrupt culture and still respect the cross?
Conversely, as we have noted before, some churches are being constructed with no cross in sight. Can you preach Christ in all his fullness and glory and not pay homage to the cross on which he died? It’s troubling. Some wear crosses who have no idea who Jesus is or was what he stood for and what he died for and you have others who build churches in his name, but refuse to deal with his redeeming sacrifice. What should we say about the cross today?
You know the basic story. Jesus, a man of peace and love who healed the sick and even raised the dead, had nonetheless made many enemies. He was a threat to the religious authorities as well as the civil ones. He still is today. There were many who would not rest until he was crucified. He went to a garden to pray. According to one account his agony was so great that, as he prayed, his sweat fell like great drops of blood. “Let this cup pass from me,” he prayed. “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” Then one of his disciples, a man named Judas betrayed him with a kiss. He was taken before the authorities to be tortured and interrogated. Meanwhile, in an act of cowardice, his most trusted disciple, Simon Peter denied he ever knew him.
According to Jewish law, all legal proceedings in which a man’s life was at stake were to be conducted during the day. That way, there could be no secrecy in the trial; it was a way to protect defendants from unfair trials. But the Roman authorities broke this law when they conducted Jesus’ trial at night. They didn’t care about justice or a fair trial; they just wanted to get rid of him. (3) Even though they could find no wrong in him they made him carry a cross up the hill of Golgotha, the place of the skull, where they drove nails in his hands and feet and he was suspended on a cross and left to die.
You know the basic story, but what does it mean?
It means, first of all, that you and I are loved with an amazing love.
I heard about a new Marine recruit who went for training at Parris Island. He was a little different from the other recruits so he was constantly being picked on. The men in the barracks he was assigned to were particularly cruel.
One day someone came up with the idea of throwing a disarmed hand grenade in the middle of the floor and pretending it was about to explode. The young man would be petrified with fear and they would have a good laugh at his expense. So at the appointed time they tossed the hand grenade and everybody began shouting, “Get out! Get out! It’s a live grenade! It’s about to explode!” But instead of running away the odd young man fell on the grenade and yelled to the other recruits, “Get out of here! You’ll be killed if you don’t! Run for your lives!” The barracks fell silent. Shame was in the air. The other recruits realized that this young man had thought the grenade was live, but instead of running away he had been willing to give his life to save the others. (4)
In the same way Christ was willing to throw his body on the live grenade for us. Pastor Richard J. Fairchild seeks to give us a similar analogy from one of the Superman movies. The evil Lex Luther launches a missile which explodes near one of the California fault zones. The resulting earthquakes create turmoil over a wide expanse of territory. As Superman flies over the area, making a visual inspection of the damage, he sees an accident about to happen. The earthquakes have caused a five-foot section of a railroad track to be twisted out of shape and a packed passenger train is roaring toward the destroyed section of track. There is no time for the train to stop even if the driver sees the ruined track. Superman, however, has just has enough time to fly down and stretch his body out to form the missing section of rail, and thus he saves the lives of the several hundred passengers on the train.
Fairchild writes, “Jesus performed a similar act of salvation. He too stretched out his body to save us. He stretched it out on the cross. (5)
It is an interesting analogy, but it breaks down here. Everyone knows that Superman is invincible! Nothing can hurt him! He is the man of steel! Jesus, however, was a man made of flesh, just like you and me. Yes, he was of one nature with the Father, but when he was born into this world, he emptied himself completely and became as we are. He became vulnerable vulnerable to abuse, vulnerable to pain, vulnerable to death.
And he did it willingly. This is important and we need to understand it. The cross is not an accident of history. Jesus didn’t die simply because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t die simply because the authorities hated him. He died to show us God’s love for us.
Much beloved retired seminary professor Fred Craddock has an unusual way of speaking to us of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. He writes, “You don’t just turn loose of life. Life is a very tenacious thing and will not give itself up easily.” He tells of chopping cotton on the family farm in middle Tennessee. There was a snake in the cotton field and young Fred killed it, but it kept wiggling.
His father said, “Well, son, a snake won’t die until sundown.” Fred didn’t know that. His father said, “You hang it on a fence,” so Fred picked the snake up with a hoe and put it over on a fence. Every once in a while he’d look over at the fence, and, sure enough, he would see the tail of that snake moving . . . until sundown. He learned for the first time that it’s hard to give up life, to just turn it loose.
But that’s exactly what Jesus did, said Craddock. He turned his life loose. It was not a decision that was determined by his friends they tried to oppose it and it was not a decision determined by his enemies. He looked at them and said, “You’re not taking my life; I’m giving my life.” In John 10: 14-18, Jesus asserted that no one could take His life from Him; he chose to lay it down. (6)
And here is the wonderful conclusion of the matter: he gave his life willingly that you and I might have life abundant.
The bank once sent author Max Lucado an overdraft notice on the checking account of one of his daughters. The overdraft was for $25.37. What should he do with this overdraft, he wondered. Let the bank absorb it? He knew they wouldn’t. Send her an angry letter? That wouldn’t satisfy the bank either. Phone and tell her to make a deposit? “Might as well tell a fish to fly.” He knew that she had no funds to draw from.
Other possibilities came into his head. Transfer the money from his account to hers? Seemed to be the best option. After all, he certainly had $25.37. He could replenish her account and pay the overdraft fee as well.
Besides, he thought to himself, that’s his job. “Don’t get any ideas,” Lucado says to his readers. “If you’re overdrawn, don’t call me. My daughter can do something you can’t do: she can call me Dad. And since she calls me Dad, I did what dads do. I covered my daughter’s mistake.”
Then Max Lucado says this: “Long before you knew you needed grace, your Father did the same. He made the deposit, an ample deposit . . . Before you knew you needed a Savior, you had one. And when you ask him for mercy, he answers, ‘I’ve already given it, dear child. I’ve already given it.’” (7) You and I are loved with an amazing love. Christ lay down his life so that you and I might have life abundant.
In his suffering and death Christ identified with you and me. Some of you may remember a popular religious song from the 1950s that went like this: “He could have called ten thousand angels /To destroy the world and set Him free. He could have called ten thousand angels, /But He died alone for you and me.”
This heart-felt song was written by the late Ray Overholt. At the time Overholt was a nightclub singer, a man who by his own admission, drank too much and smoked too much a man whose life was out of control. He knew he needed to make a change. His mother had been a believer, and Overholt began to yearn for her faith. He began searching the Scriptures. One day he came across Matthew 26:53 in which Jesus told Simon Peter that he could ask his Father and he would send twelve legions of angels. Overholt didn’t know at the time that twelve legions would have been more than 72,000 angels. He thought ten thousand angels was a good number and so he wrote his song about the 10,000 angels that could have rescued Jesus as he hung on the cross. He wrote this song that quickly became a favorite with many church choirs even though he did not count himself as a follower of Christ at the time.
Later Overholt was invited to sing his song in a church service, and during that service he felt his heart gripped by grace. From that time on, Ray Overholt became a devout servant of Jesus Christ.
The tune probably wouldn’t have worked if he had tried to fit in 72,000 angels. But 10,000 was enough. The theology of his song might be a little unsophisticated but the point of the song is right on: Christ cared enough to identify with you and me. That’s why the cross is so important to our faith.
An article in the National Geographic years ago told of a young Pennsylvania man who was badly burned in an explosion. To save his life, physicians covered him with skin from a donor, as well as skin which had been cultured from a stamp-sized piece of his own skin which had not been burned.
A journalist asked him, “Do you ever think about the donor who saved you?”
The young man replied, “To be alive because of a dead donor is too big, too much, so I don’t think about it.” (8)
On this day when we focus on Christ’s passion, his suffering and his death in our behalf, it is time for us to think about what it means. You and I are loved with an amazing love. Christ gave his life willingly that you and I might have life abundant. In his suffering and death Christ identified with you and me.
1. God’s Devotional Book (Colorado Springs, CO: Cook Communications Ministries, 1984), p. 9.
2. Ann Woolner, http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a7g8r6.Gn6eM.
3. Paul L. Maier. First Easter (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973), p. 46.
4. Paris Donehoo, http://www.fcc-elgin.org/sermons/sermon.asp?y=2005&m=02&d=20.
5. http://spirit-net.ca/sermons/b-or27sesn.php.
6. Craddock Stories (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001).
7. Max Lucado, Cure for the Common Life (Nashville: W Publishing, 2005), 69‑70. Cited by Robert Jeffress, Second Chance, Second Act (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press), pp. 23-24.
8. Bob Kapler. Cited in 1001 Quotes, Illustrations, and Humorous Stories (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing, 2008), p. 216.