The Old Rugged Cross - 02/28/2016

WARNING PREACHY

Colossians 2:11-15 (MSG)

Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.

It is a paradigm really, that life should be found in an object of death; that a Roman element of execution became the Trademark of freedom and life.

1 Corinthians 1:22-25 (NIV)

²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

In the history of public executions I do not believe that there was ever an element of death that was so tortuous and painful as the Cross’s execution.  The guillotine, the hangman’s noose, the executioner’s axe, the firing squad, the electric chair, and lethal injection, all are humane ways of executing someone compared to the brutality of crucifixion.  And to think that the executed were whipped with the cat-of-nine tails 39 times because the 40^th one would kill a man.  When I think of it, Jesus had to be born and die in precise time in history because Jesus had to die the most horrific human death in order to pay the price of sin.  So then, Jesus died a tragic death on a Roman cross.

It makes no sense that I should love that old cross but for me it is forgiveness and the grace of life.  And it’ all so unreasonable that this truth can only be realized by seeking God through His Holy Spirit -  it’s not as if I could have ever figured it out on my own.

And so in order to know the salvation of our souls it takes a very real effort to know the cross of Jesus and all of its implications.  But this knowing the cross is not a head knowledge but a very real heart knowledge. 

(Johnny Cash – The Old Rugged Cross) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBJUpl7JjOU

The Old Rugged Cross

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

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 some day for a crown

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

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 some day for a crown

In the old rugged Cross, stain'd with blood so divine
A wondrous beauty I see
For the dear Lamb of God, left his Glory above
To pardon and sanctify me

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 some day for a crown

To the old rugged Cross, I will ever be true
Its shame and reproach gladly bear
Then He'll call me some day to my home far away
Where his glory forever I'll share

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 some day for a crown