REFLECTIONS ON THE CROSS

If you missed pastor Dave Robert’s message last Sunday, August 4, I would encourage you to check it out at www.montrosechurch.org/sermons.  He spoke to us of the reality of things that led to the cross of Jesus. On the cross Jesus experienced the outcome of life in a broken and sinful world. God, being just, and without sacrificing His integrity or our freedom, took upon Himself the wages of sin, stretched out his arms and died the death we deserved.

One of the many things we see in this is the distance God will go to reconnect with that one lost sheep who became separated from the other ninety-nine.  God's love moved Him to seek us out, invite us home, do the necessary work to get us home, lavish His grace on us, and then treat us like we had never gotten separated at all.  No wonder John Newton called it "amazing grace."

From before the foundation of the world God had a plan to redeem His creation, which He knew would choose against Him.  Adam and Eve, and you and I, didn’t catch God off guard and unprepared.  Knowing full well what we would do with our freedom of choice, God created the heavens and the earth.  In love He set the redemptive process in motion so that “when the fullness of the time came,” Jesus would enter into the storyline and make His way to a cross on which He would die for you and me. (See Ephesians 1:4 and Galatians 4:4).  This led Charles Wesley, back in 1738, to write these wonderful words

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me!

He left His Father's throne above,

So free, so infinite His grace;

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam's helpless race;

'Tis mercy all, immense and free;

For, O my God, it found out me.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature's night;

Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Him is mine!

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Amazing love! how can it be

God hasn’t been fair with us, has He?  Instead, He comes to us in great mercy and grace.  He enters into our stories and redeems us.  He takes us seriously and re-creates us into a people who live in light of the fact that God has loved, accepted, and forgiven us. The God who could have written us off instead “emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race.”   He shocked and stunned us all so much that we have to conclude with Mr. Wesley, “'Tis mercy all, immense and free.”

The amazing thing is that God has acted on our behalf.  I’m not quite sure how to process a thought like that.  It is so overwhelming, so incredible.  God has acted on our behalf, out of a love so deep that it bleeds for us.  Maybe we don’t have to “process” it to some sort of intellectual satisfaction.  Maybe this kind of love is simply to be received, accepted and embraced.  Maybe it’s okay just to let God be God, to let grace be grace, to let love be love.  Maybe it’s okay to live in a mercy that testifies, “My chains fell off, my heart was free.”  Maybe we ought simply to quit processing and do what Wesley did when he said to Jesus, “I rose, went forth and followed Thee.”  I bet a decision like this would translate into one great ride, wouldn’t it?

Blessings on you,

Rick Savage