The Wonderful Cross

This is not how I expected to spend Good Friday.

I was supposed to have arrived home from a trip to see my brother--just in time to make it to Good Friday service, which I always love because my church makes it a very personal reflection on The Cross. Instead, I'm still out in Middle America, caught in a snowstorm that was somewhat unexpected based on the mild weather here this last week. But it's Providence, and Providence would have it that my "service substitute" include a song and a passage that I just can't keep to myself: 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11 and "The Wonderful Cross," sung by a number of Christian artists. Although you've likely heard both before, as I had, for me God made them come alive--like new--for this Good Friday.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Paul encourages the church to "hold firmly" to their faith by recapping Christ's death, Resurrection, and the start of the early church (verses 1-2; 3-8). But it's verses 9-10a that tell the greatest victory of the story: that through His death, Christ offered life to everyone, no matter their past, as the apostle Paul declares: "For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am..." Through the cross, Christ put all the sin we had upon himself, so that we could be changed. That realization humbles me, and makes me recognize that the only way to accept that invitation fully is not just to be "saved," but to live every day for Him. I know I can never repay Him for what He's done for me; on the cross, He literally became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21).

What does this mean in practical terms? We Know: that person I can't seem to forgive? I have to. The worrying about tomorrow? I gotta give it up. The unnecessary time I spend on things that draw me away from Him: I need a schedule change.
Anything--anything that hinders me from living this life as a marathon for God(Hebrews 12: 1-12). And when we consider the fate that Christ's death saved us from, it should make the sin we hold on to easier to give up. But it's a process, and thank God He's patient and forgiving (Psalm 103), and that He's given us biblical examples like Paul whom He's radically transformed for His glory (1 Timothy 1: 15-17). None of us are beyond His reach.

That song, "The Wonderful Cross," has such beautiful lyrics that underscore the response we are to have to the cross: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/michael+w.+smith/the+wonderful+cross_10180229.html. A key phrase: "Life so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all."

...so as I wait (and pray) that tomorrow I arrive in a much warmer, familiar place, I'm reminded--that He's reminded me--that I'm to "celebrate" the cross each day by taking up my own cross and following Him(Luke 9:23). That's the beauty--and wonder--of this weekend, and this life.