The Cross as Empowerment—the Life 01-29-16 (Part III)

It’s somewhat ironic that so many people choose to wear crosses on their bodies, especially considering both what the cross stands for and who the person wearing it is. In many cases it borders on the oxymoronic. Here’s your quintessential rock star or Hollywood icon, decked out in so much “bling” they could single-handedly cancel third world debt. And yet dangling around their neck or tattooed on their arm is the cross. Somewhere along the way, the message gets blurred.

Is that what it means to be a Christian? Just show the cross somewhere on your body or use the right words? Or is it more than that, more core than that?

Here’s the way John the disciple of Jesus describes it: “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.” (1 John 4:10--12, NLT)

This is a radical concept. The Cross is meant not only as a symbol and a revelation, it’s also meant to be empowerment. Jesus’ symbol and revelation of God’s amazing embrace can end up being a life giver. The unselfish love God reveals through Jesus’ death on the cross, in some mysterious way, is brought to life in us when we choose to immerse ourselves in that kind of Love.

But maybe how that happens isn’t so mysterious after all. A psychological truism states that what you think about, you become. Perhaps this is why Jesus goes to such great and sacrificial lengths with the cross. He knows that if people see it for what it is (an unprecedented demonstration of ultimate, selfless love from God) they will be drawn to God. Disciple John puts it this way: “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.” (1 John 4:16, NLT)

What we are drawn to in our minds and hearts we become more like. Love gives birth to love. The more we’re around real Love, the more we’re drawn to that kind of love and the more we begin to live that kind of love. That’s why Jesus wanted to show us such a powerful demonstration of God’s love, so we could more easily trust God, knowing how God really feels about us and what God really wants for us. Love gives birth to love.

So the Cross ends up being more than just a symbol or a revelation. It can also empower what it symbolizes and reveals; unselfish and inclusive love. It both defines and facilitates the way to God’s kind of life. If you wear the Cross, you’re saying that you not only believe and value what It stands for, you’re choosing to live it, too. The Way of the Cross is the Way of True Love and the Way of Real Life and the Way of Energy for that Life.