DEVOTION//Cheer Up! It's the Cross!
The Christian's life is a life on a roller coaster. Nothing in it is ever durable or permanent. Nothing in it is absolutely reliable. At no time can the Christian finally say: At last! I've made it! Soul, take your ease! You have triumphed over all your sins and temptations and won the victory over every temporal fear or need.
No, such is not, and this side of the grave never will be the Christian's lot. Nor will it be the lot of the church on earth. Rather our lot is the cross. It is torture and pain, suffering and death.
Cross-carrying touches every step of our redemption
Those marks of the cross are evident from the very beginning of our life with Christ. That mark was no less at the very beginning of the gospel of our redemption.
He, the holy and almighty Son of God, is born to a teenage peasant girl in a barn. The angels sing to the shepherds, not to him. The wise men come and worship, and their worship occasions the slaughter of the Holy Innocents and the refugee flight of the Holy Family. Rising and falling, the cross and rescue accompany every step of his journey until the day of his resurrection.
And his history is our history, and that too until the day of our triumphant entrance into heaven. Yes, the closer the disciple follows, the heavier the cross.
Cross-carrying brings blessing
Ah, but then there is the other side of the coin: the heavier the cross the greater the blessing it brings. Yes, and the greater the blessings, the more necessary the cross. So cheer up! It's the cross! And that's a good thing!
Does that sound like a riddle and a mystery? Well, it is! It is a mystery that begins with the first promise of the Savior in Genesis 3, and a riddle not resolved until Easter Sunday, not fully resolved until we get to heaven.
Cross-carrying promises a crown
For what does God promise in Genesis 3:14-19? He promises redemption through the work of the Seed who will suffer the wounding of his heel. He promises redemption to the man who raised his fist in the face of God and blamed God for all his troubles; but it is a redemption that will not come apart from the sweat of his brow and the suffering of death and the return to the dust from which he was made. He promises redemption to the woman who chose to believe the devil rather than God who made her and gave her every blessing; but it is a redemption through the birth of a Son a long way in the future. And what marks the promise of that Seed? The promise of his coming is repeated in the suffering and pain of every mother giving birth and in the cries with which each child enters the world.
And that's the way that it must be! Down through the ages of the Old Testament, then in the life of Christ and of the apostles and the early church, and finally in these last days before the final rescue of the church by the return of her Bridegroom, that has been the constant: redemption and rescue, life and salvation as a free and glorious gift of God on account of the merit of Christ.
But always the cross of the Redeemer leaves its mark on each believer. As there was no crown for Christ without the cross, so there is no crown for the believer without the sign of the cross.
Source: Daniel M. Deutschlander delivered this essay at North Atlantic District Convention (June 8-9, 2010) and the Arizona-California District Convention (June 14-16, 2010). Professor Deutschlander is retired from teaching at Northwestern College and Martin Luther College. Read the entire essay here.