MEANING OF THE CROSS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 164, 13 July 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

MEANING OF THE CROSS.

suffering for others. During his visit to Sydney, before he camo on to Auckland, among the sermons preached by Dr. Tovohiko Kagawa was one on the meaning of the Cross. It was delivered in Pitt Street Church. The following passages from it are taken from "The Australian Christian World." Jesus was asked to lead a revolution; but He preferred the death 011 the Cross. He said if anybody wanted to be the chief or the head of a society, let him be the servant or slave pf that society. There is a great meaning in that. We find in Soviet Russia, more than eighteen years after the great revolution of 1917 (in which thousands perished), the people are still suffering to-day. A French socialist published the number of those who suffered some kind of persecution, or were put to death, as more than twelve million. Whether that is exactly correct I cannot say, but it was a statistical publication. When I came over from Japan to Australia there were four Russians coming to this country. They told me many things about the life of Moscow which made me very sad. Communism in the beginning promised much, but in reality the result is pretty bad. Why so? Because they accepted a tliebry of materialism from Karl Marx. Remember that there are three kinds of societies. The first is that of physical nature. We have bodies, and we need food, so we are tempted to think that society is nothing but physical nature. But when we take a fresh point of view, we find that there is a second stage of society, called psychological society. Racial questions, education, standards of ethics, and some kinds of religious movements bring us up to this stage of society. The third stage is that of full consciousness of human need. We are tempted at times to take a materialistic view of society and history, and we make mistakes," as Karl Marx did. Many of you to-night probably make mistakes in the same way. Real society must be based on the consciousness of human need. Jesus was trying to establish the Kingdom of God on earth lir.t only to have a physical society, as we have in Japan a kind of society wliicn deals only with blood relations. Society Founded on the Cl'oss. Jesus tried to have a real imperishable, everlasting society —a State of God established on the earth. That is why He declined to be a king or the leader of a blood revolution. If we to-day want to establish a real, everlasting, imperishable state 011 earth, we cannot build that' society up simply based on blood relations. We must have full consciousness of God. Confucius was the most wonderful teacher of ethics in China, but if you study his teachings carefully you are disappointed, because his teaching of charity means simply to love those who are willing to have some kind of connection with you. The teachings of Confucius are not sufficient to establish a full, imperishable state on earth. A certain descendant of Confucius fotmd this out, and he is now a Christian. Unless we are willing to suffer for other people's faults, it is quite impossible to have a real society. The reason why Jesus preferred to bear the Cross rather than be a king on earth was that lie knew the nature of the real kingdom of God on earth. The most effective revolution on earth is the "way of the Cross. .