Pastor's
Study
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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