The rugged cross. One of our worship songs this morning
talked of the rugged cross. As I sang, I was focused on a sanitised version of
that rugged cross: geometrically aligned, proportionality perfect, lines
straight and true.
We had been thinking about faith being not just cerebral,
but an action as well. I had been focused on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,
fully man as well as fully divine, sweating blood as he prayed for there to be
another way than the cross. But when he heard from his Dad, he aligned with the
will of God and committed wholeheartedly to the action required to save us, and
to demonstrate his faith.
He had to hang on a cross, an old rugged cross, probably
more like a mis-shapen dead tree than a properly engineered cross. Rough,
hurting his eviscerated back. Maybe thorny. Knobbly, perhaps with protrusions
at various points which would have magnified the discomfort and pain. Maybe there
were still some errant twigs poking out at various points, piercing him again
if he shifted his weight.
A rugged cross.
There was nothing sanitised about the death of our Saviour. As
I think of his sacrifice, I marvel again at what he surrendered to willingly,
with love and compassion (‘forgive them, for they don’t know what they are
doing’), with faith in the Father who never left him nor forsook him nor let
him down.
Tonight I ask again for more of the empowering Holy Spirit,
so that I, too, can live in faith, faith in the truth of God my Saviour, which
impels me to take steps, to open my mouth, to write words …
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