FRIDAY, APRIL 10 For this day I invited responses of our congregation. Three people gave responses. If you would like to offer one today, just hit reply to all and we will receive them.
Glory in the Cross
I was heartbroken. Walking home through the main street of my small northwestern Iowa town after Good Friday church service, I was still wiping my eyes and wondering how it was possible that my good, kind Jesus friend had just been killed in such a horrible way. And how could people have sung that awful song, “The Old Rugged Cross,” when they all knew what a wonderful special man Jesus was.
Yes, I was a young girl. My Sunday School days of sitting in little kids chairs then moving to bigger kids’ chairs, were filled with lessons of wondrous, sweet stories of Jesus healing sick people, and telling children we could come closer to him and listen to his story-telling and teachings. I loved him.
And if my minister, who often preached about Jesus, had said the Cross was glorious, I would have thought he needed to go back to school or at least talk to my grandfather and learn more about Jesus and how much he loved and helped everybody and certainly did not belong on any old ‘rugged cross’ to hang and die with nails and a spear in his body. That was just wrong!
It took a lot of spiritual growth for me to get unstuck from my heartbreak fixation of Jesus’
execution on the Cross. It wasn’t until I was a grown woman that I finally got it. The connection of Christ’s dying and the resulting state of Grace that we all received through this event. Then I was able to move on from my little girl’s endless crucifixion sadness.
Is there Glory in the Cross? Nowadays, I can say ABSOLUTELY! Christ’s crucifixion is for me, a symbol of the deepest level of forgiveness. God’s love poured out in a most astounding event, to show His Love and Forgiveness for we the people He created out of love. The amazing life renewing result: Christians living in a state of Grace, forgiven and eternally loved through Christ each and every day.
Marolyn McDiarmid
Why should we glory in the Cross? A symbol of shame and punishment? Jesus changed all of that for all of us. It’s hard to comprehend a man so kind, so wonderful as Jesus being crucified and treated as a criminal. Even through all the suffering he had to endure he still committed the most selfless act ever made by any man and sacrificed himself for you and me. Today the cross is a symbol of hope for all who simply believe.
I have a cross necklace that was given to me by my family a few years ago for a Christmas gift. It is very special to me. It gives me such comfort just wearing it. Sometimes when I’m getting ready for work and I consider wearing a different necklace I think to myself “today might be a day I need to share a little bit of Jesus with someone”, so I put it on. Who knows who I will encounter that may not know Jesus and that cross around my neck may strike up a conversation! I couldn’t imagine a life without glorifying that beautiful cross of Jesus!
Jennifer Bender
I only remember missing being in the church on Easter but two times in my life. One was the Easter that my grandson Hunter was born at 3 a.m. on Easter Sunday. the other one was when I was 11. I had an abscess on my lungs and was told that unless it was removed, I would be dead by the age of 18. There were only 2 places in the U. S. where this surgery could be done, John Hopkins or Duke. Of course, we chose Duke and it was the 11th time this surgery had been performed. It was a bit scary. But my parents wanted my opinion before they decided and I opted for the surgery and its risk. After two weeks in the hospital and many tests, it was decided to go ahead with the surgery and it was performed on Good Friday. It was Easter Sunday before I fully awoke, with a lot of pain but it was felt that I would live. I am not comparing what I went through with the ordeal of Christ’s being crucified but it did and does give even more meaning to it. I do know what it is like to face death but at age 11 maybe I did not know what I do now. Christ knew what he was going to suffer and was willing to go through it to save our life and not his own. Each time I see the cross but more so at Easter I am reminded of the time I have been given then I praise God and the Son for it. The cross means not death to me but life.
Just as a postscript, the surgeon who performed the surgery told me at the age of 25 that by the age of 40 I would be an invalid and by 45 would be dead. Well, as we all know i am well past 45 and am not a complete invalid yet. I am grateful.
Another addendum: In the hospital the week before the surgery I learned an important lesson, not to envy another for something they had. My roommate and I asked a nurse for a coke not too long before lunch and she refused because it was too close to lunch. I few minutes later we saw her take a coke to the room of the boy across the hall. We called her in and asked why he got a coke and we did not. Her reply was harsh. She said it was because he was dying and we were not. Sometimes I forget but really do not usually suffer from envy.
Jean Haywood
THE OLD RUGGED CROSS
1. On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff’ring and shame;
And I love that old cross where the Dearest and Best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
o Refrain:
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.
2. Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary.
3. In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.
4. To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;
Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
Then He’ll call me someday to my home far away,
Where His glory forever I’ll share.