The Week In Review

Reflections on the Cross

We have heard many messages about the cross. Before we venture away from Resurrection Sunday can we have a brief review? Our understanding of God love tells us that the cross was on the mind of God before there was light, sea, before God said, let it be…

We were reminded that Jesus came to bear our grief, our sorrows, to be bruised for our sins and that we were healed by his stripes. We were told God made this promise when he said the serpent’s head would be crushed under the heal of the seed. Jesus is the seed of woman that crushes the power of Satan. And when you read in scripture about the “seed” of woman, this word for seed carries a feminine attachment. Whenever you read elsewhere in scripture it talks about seed, but the reference is to the man. This is simply another confirmation that God had chosen his son to come through means not of man but divine means.

Jesus fulfilled the mission that began with God. However, Jesus’ purpose did not start the day he was born, but his birth only began the process of fulfillment, of enacting the mission that you and I are now called to carry. The Holy Spirit equips you and I to carry the mission of God to a world that is in need of hearing the message of salvation.

The cross reminds us of who Jesus really is and the power of our savior. Jesus fulfilled all the words the prophets spoke of his coming. They told us he would be…the Lamb of God, The Son of man, the bread of life, the living bread, the light of the world, the gate for the sheep, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth and the life. He is the counselor; he is the true vine, he is the priest, the prophet, the Son of David, the seed, He is the prophet like Moses, he is the kinsmen redeemer and so much more.

Jesus also finished any doubt about who he was and still is. He showed his authority and power over illness and diseases, over blindness, and leprosy, over sin and demons, over nature, over history, over space, over time and the future, over the wind and the water, over death, over Satan, over religious forms and fashions, over his own future and even over our future.

When he states it is finished, he is also saying, there is nothing left to be done, I have done it all, for now and forever more. And nothing was able to keep him from finishing his mission. Mockers, liars, betrayers, the power of men, not even physical pain. Not even the feeling of separation from his father and the emotional and spiritual pain that entailed, kept him from finishing his mission.

The cross was the method used to open salvation but it was not the end of Jesus or of God’s plan…because had Jesus not gotten up it would have been simply a good man with a bad idea, because it did not work. However it was God!! Jesus did not stay in the grave. He rose!! He rose and gave us victory over all that held man captive. What Jesus finished gave you and I a new start…

What did he rise to give us…

I have to make it personal. See I was lost, but he found me,

He left his place in heaven to come and find you and I because we would not have any other way to the Father…not our goodness, not our works, nothing.

He knew your need so he bled, died and rose to take care of that need. He died to show God’s mercy.

We were empty. Lost, unable to live as we should and nothing we seek fills that void; relationships, status, nothing. So Jesus came to fill me, to fill you so we can find wholeness in Christ.

We were blind and he came to restore sight to our spiritual blindness so that we could see.

We were broken, from hurt, abuse, neglect or whatever breaks us, but he came to heal us from all sins stronghold. He stretched his hands and in one hand they nailed your sins and in the other they nailed all the sins that were done and would ever be done against you. They were all nailed to the cross. And we were set free from them all!! When we felt like nothing, he came to bring us a purpose and a mission to fulfill.

So what was our need for the cross?

We needed the cross so we could worship God in spirit and in truth… so that we can be like Jesus and give a shout of “IT IS FINISHED” when our lives are over. We can say we took up our cross and followed Christ to be the example in this world that God has called us to be. We are able to live because of the resurrected life of Christ. We were dead, but now we are alive. We live because he lives. The cross of Christ…The resurrection of the savior…the salvation of the lost…the indwelling of the Spirit…the body of believers…the fulfillment of God’s mission…all because of God’s love. This is why we rejoice on Resurrection Sunday. This is what we need to remember so that we continue as if every day is Resurrection Sunday!