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Prince of Peace
Lutheran Church &
Early Learning Center

P.O. Box 5, 3320 Route 94, Hamburg, NJ 07419
973.827.5080 +
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Rev. Stephen Vogt, Pastor

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Message from Pastor Vogt:

Lift High the Cross
One More Time

Lift High the Cross was our theme for 2005-2006. It was a good theme. It is a great hymn, and we were careful not to overuse it. Nothing ruins a great hymn like overuse. Was it P. T. Barnum who said, “Keep them wanting more"

We can get too sentimental about the cross. Such sentiment causes us to sing such hymns as “Old Rugged Cross,” or “In the Cross of Cross of Christ I Glory” without realizing the full meaning of the words. Those warm fuzzies such hymns stir within us can mislead us and hinder our growth and experience as Christians.

The cross is not something merely to be cherished in the heart, sentimentally. There is a danger in objectifying the cross on a hill and far away. For Christians the crucifixion of Jesus happened distant from us in place and time; Jerusalem, the first century. But the cross is not distant. Jesus expressly tells us, today, "If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) The cross is not made of wood.

My gut feeling is that we don’t want, nor do we eagerly embrace our crosses. Human experience says we avoid them at all cost. We certainly want to cherish the Lord Jesus, whose cross was literally made of wood and stood outside Jeru-salem’s walls. But we will have our own crosses to bear as Christians. Such crosses are real and they connect us to Jesus in whose name we bear them, and in some cases, even embrace them!

Now that Lent and the passion are concluded for this year, we must honestly ask ourselves;. are we guilty of paying sentimental lip service to a wooden object far removed from us in time and place? What about cherishing the crosses God gives us here and now?

The crosses we carry will include the love, comfort and advice you are required to give your friend whose drug-abusing child has run away and calls home pleading for money. Actually, the crosses come in as many varieties as there are people and circumstances.

Your crosses will be: an elderly parent you are called to care for; a lost job because you won’t work on Sunday mornings; your regular sacrificial gift to the mission and work of your church; a youth worker’s untiring dedication to her task; a person’s dedication to daily Bible reading and prayer; your continued efforts to stock the food pantry; your dedication to choir and worship, or the altar. The cross is holding on to your faith when you’ve lost your job, your health is failing, and your kids won’t speak to you.

Crosses are tricky. They call for discernment. Sometimes we wonder, do they come from God or from Satan? Jesus faced his first cross in the wilderness, where for forty days he fasted and was tempted by the devil. But was it from God? The Bible says the Spirit “drove him into the wilderness.” Job taught us that God allows crosses to come to us, but that God himself is not the cause of evil. Job refused to curse God. We seldom cherish these crosses or glory in them.

When the hymn tells us to “lift high the cross” it is asking us to embrace Jesus and his gospel, publicly, “till all the world adores his sacred name.” When the hymn bids us to lift the cross it does so, knowing that others may be slinging arrows to malign us. To embrace the cross is to pray for those who hate you and to do good to those who have done you wrong. It means to suffer silently for the sake of love.

Our congregation’s cross may be its size. We are a small church. We don’t offer the programs that that bigger congregations do because we can’t. Our size means that we need each other to participate, to work and to pray, and to worship. We need each person’s generous gifts. Prince of Peace is place you can’t get lost in, unless you put down the cross and drop out.

Crosses have their benefits. We have what bigger congregations don’t have, we have intimacy. We know each other’s names and we love one another dearly. It is not hard to pray for one another, because we are praying for our friends. We watch our children grow together and we rejoice in each other’s milestones.

In Colossians 1:24 Paul rejoices in his cross, that is the suffering he endures in his own body (wounds from being beaten?) for the sake of the body of Christ, the church. He gladly accepts this as the price for the progress of the Faith of Jesus in the world.

To lift high the cross is to embrace pain and suffering, your own and others’. And thus we pray for Christians around the globe who are per-secuted, who are not free to worship, who know poverty and hunger. We have compassion and empathy for the abused and for those who seek justice.

The cross is not on a hill far away, it is right here. It is in our own homes, on our own block and in our schools. Jesus calls us to embrace our crosses and to follow him. We begin by identifying what those crosses are, and then praying for them, and then by our actions sanctifying them.

So fear not. Identify your crosses and lift them high. Let us follow faithfully.


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