The Horrible Beauty of The Cross
The Horrible Beauty of The Cross 3/2024
“In that case the offense of the cross has been removed” (Galatians 5:11b).
In Paraguay a doctor spoke out against the military regime and its cruelty. Local police arrested his teenage son and tortured him to death. Enraged townsfolk wanted his funeral to be a protest march. Humbled, the doctor chose another means of outcry.
At the funeral, the father displayed his son’s body as found in jail - naked, scarred from electric shocks and cigarette burns - beaten and battered. Villagers filed past the corpse, which lay not in a coffin but on a blood-soaked prison mattress. It was the strongest protest imaginable - for it put injustice on grotesque display.
Isn’t this what God did on the cross of Calvary? During this holy week do you often picture the scarecrow figure of Christ impaled on that wooden spit? Do you let the cross offend you? Even sicken you? God the Father allows his Son to hang naked and marked with scars, beaten and battered thus exposing what kind of world we have - a world of gross injustice.
But more than that Christ on the cross displays what kind of person you are, and I am? Wretched people. Sin sodden dust creatures in desperate need of a Savor. “Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” - we croon in that African American spiritual, but does what happened and who hung on that cross truly offend you in such a convicting way? You see, because of our sin we really were there!
Paul writes, “If I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed” (Galatians 5:11). Meaning, if I preach righteousness through good works, then the cross is no longer necessary. The message of the cross - that we are sinful beyond saving unless God intervenes on our behalf - is softened or silenced by false gospels.
The true gospel is the most offensive news ever announced: We are wicked and without hope in and of ourselves. Our best efforts to be good are worthless. A crisis occurs if the cross loses this offense in our eyes. If we’re not offended by what happened on the cross because of our sin, we’re in grave danger of losing the comfort and hope of the cross.
So, this holy week remember God the Father’s protest on Good Friday in the most personal way. The Son of God was nailed to wood like a wall decoration and left to bleed and die because of ME - yes, MY SIN. My sin cost my God that much.
But, for heaven’s sake, don’t stop there. Then marry the horror of Calvary with the hope of Calvary. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). God made a cross shaped way for us to be forgiven, free, made whole, and pure by faith in Christ. Life through death. Love through sacrifice. How does it feel to be completely forgiven and loved by Jesus? When we are rightly offended by what happened on the cross, we find what happened to be truly beautiful.
Meditating with you on the horrible beauty of the cross,
Pastor Tim (1-210-837-3934)
