The Cross - Our Way of Life (2)

 

 

“Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27:45 – 46).

 

“The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized” (Mark 10:10:39).

 

To be called into the fellowship of His sufferings is to be called into depths of Divine mystery. Whether with the psalmist of Psalm 22, with Jesus on Calvary, or with Paul and his friends in their affliction in Asia (2 Cor. 1:2 – 11), we are called to places we will not always understand, places not always visible to the natural eye.

 

Paul writes, “We were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8 – 9).

 

Paul knew that the sufferings he and his companions experienced were for the blessing of others. “We are comforted by God so that we may comfort you” (2 Cor. 1:4). “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation” (2 Cor. 1:6).

 

“So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12).

 

Do we not see our Lord Jesus in Paul?

 

“We are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

 

There is, my friends, a shame associated with the Cross of Christ. We are told that we are to “go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13).

 

Jesus was not ashamed of His shame; He despised it in the light of the joy set before Him. Likewise, we ought not to be ashamed of the shame that the world, the flesh, and even the religious world associates with following the Christ of the Cross, of being associated with the Cross of Christ, of hanging on the Cross with Jesus for the world to see.

 

Paul writes, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16).

 

The Gospel is foolishness in many ways to the world, it appears weak to the world (and to many professing Christians, which I suppose is why we employ the ways of the world), but we are to “know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2; see also 1:17 – 31).

 

This foolishness of the Gospel extends from Jesus dying on the Cross to reconcile us to God, into the Way we live our lives for Him and others. Jesus says that if we are to follow Him that we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him. He asks the quite reasonable question, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul?” (Mark 8:34 – 38). Jesus tells us that we must lose our lives for His sake and the Gospel.

 

Paul writes, “He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15).

 

Whether we are seeing Jesus in the Gospels, in Psalm 22, Psalm 116, Psalm 118, Isaiah 53, or elsewhere throughout the Bible, we can be assured that the darkness will lift and the light of the glory of God will shine on His servant, on His Son, in glorification and joy and pleasure. This is true of the Body of Christ, and it is true of you and of me, it is true of us.

 

We are indeed called to be broken bread and poured out wine in the hands of Jesus for others. We are the fish and bread with which He feeds the multitudes. We are the lambs the Good Shepherd chooses to give their lives on behalf of others. O what glory to be chosen by our Shepherd, to know that we are in His arms and hands as He offers us up, just as the Father so loved the world that He gave His Son Jesus Christ. Can there be any more glorious fellowship?

 

Some Christians think that Jesus died so that they would not have to suffer, this is a lie. One of the reasons Jesus died on the Cross was that He might bear the wrath of the judgment of God for sin and sins; that our sins might be atoned for and that our sinful selves might be put to death on the Cross, buried with Him, and that we might be raised to newness of life in Christ Jesus – a New Man (Romans chapters 1 – 8).

 

Because we are now raised to newness of life in Jesus Christ, we are called to the life of the Cross, called indeed to suffer; not to suffer for our sins, not to suffer the wrath of God, but to suffer for the glory of God and the blessing of others. We are called to suffer as our Father transforms us into the image of the Firstborn Son.

 

One way to put this is that because of Jesus’ death on the Cross we do not suffer the wrath of God but are now called to suffer for the sake of Christ and others. Jesus did not die so that we might live life on earth in some kind of Christian Disneyland, but so that He could send us into a world of pain and suffering and chaos and hunger and death – so that we might bring the light and love and grace and mercy of Jesus Christ to others…so that the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross might be seen in us and through us.

 

During this season of Lent, will we enter into the sufferings of Jesus Christ? Will we seek to know the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10)?

 

Will we and our congregations become broken bread and poured out wine for others?