The Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17994, 12 April 1930, Page 18 (Supplement)

The Sabbath

THE CROSS. ITS PRE-EMINENCE. " - Holy Week draws attention to that which is central in Christianity. It confronts men with the Cross. Though the Gospels record but few representative incidents in Christ's life and preserve the merest fragments of His teaching they give a detailed account of His sufferings and death. The history of those few days between Palm Sunday and Good Friday occupies more than a quarter of the evangelic narrative. The Gospels provide an account of the death rather than of the life of Christ.

Tile prominence given to the Gross is apparent throughout the New Testament. The Epistles are almost entirely silent about Christ’s ministry, but they constantly refer to His death. St. Paul declared that the substance of his preaching was Christ crucified. He was content to preach this alone. Yet nothing could have been so repellent to the people to whom Christianity was first offered than a religion which made the Crucifixion of Its Founder the central fact of its witness. The offenoe of the Cross was plain. Christian evangelists desired to win converts, and they used every possible means, to secure men’s acceptance of tiie faith they preached. Why, then, did they insist with such unmistakable emphasis on the Cross? Plainly it belongs to the heart of Christianity. If It is obscured or ignored “the fact of Christ" can have no living force in the world.

The history of Christianity shows that the Cross has been the most powerful element in a religion which in the early centuries overcame all its rivals and continues to maintain its influence in the lives of millions in proportion to the prominence it gives to that which -is the symbol of defeat and death. Here is the mystery of the Christian faith. We are not invited to pay our homage to a martyr for truth Who set the world an example of noble loyalty to what He conceived to be His duty to God and His fellows. It is true that His death has been an inspiration to countless numbers who in their time of trial have recalled His sufferings and death and shaped their lives according to Ilis example. He is the Hero of heroes, but Ho is something more. The Gross transcends the orbit of human life. It discloses something which Lies in tho Heart of God.

Until we see In the Gross a mani- : feslatlon of the Divine nature and will for man w 6 miss the secret of Christianity’s insistence on the fact that 1 Christ was crucified. Ilis sufferings ! show us that pain is not only the ex- ; pcrience of human life, but that God is also concerned with it. We shall do well to give attention to Baron von Hugel’s warning against that representation of a suffering God which seems to imply that beyond Him there is an Absolute untroubled by the woes of men. Even when we avoid this i dualism we may not impute to God | what belongs to our mortal nature. \ Yet we must confidently hold the Christian doctrine of the Gross which finds in it an expression of that which ' j.,, in the heart of God, Who has His part, in the sorrows and pain of : humanity. The Cross is the trysting , place of God and man, assuring us that ! ia suffering we are brought into a ’ nearer fellowship with the Eternal, and ; that out of the grim discipline of pain | and the darkness of death He will : p.-ing to us a new life in the plentilude . of liis power. j The worst sufferings that come to : man have their source in sin. it is unnecessary io suppose that apart i from sin neither pain nor death would | have been our lot, but we are conscious that it gives its own bitterness to sorrow and suffering. If, therefore, in the Gross we find God and man in

fellowship, He is also concerned not merely with pain, but with this fact of sin. He there deals with it, to overcome it, to put it out of the way, to abolish it. Here is the

Supremo Purpose of the Cross. It takes away sin. This is confessedly a great mystery, and we cannot even begin to apprehend its significance until we recognise what sin is, and that we are guilty of it, or, rather, that it stains and weakens our whole The Cross has so little meaning to-day because we have a defective sense of sin, which is but another way of saying we are blind to the infinite holiness-and purity of God. He there shows us the result of sin while He manifests how it is overcome. The paradox of the Cross lies in the fact that while it reveals the true nature and work of sin it overcomes it. There is a widespread notion that we can dispense with the Cross and still claim the Christian name. We congratulate ourselves on the fact that ours is a religion of common sense But Christianity is the religion of the Cross, and that is not common sense at all. it is directly and manifestly contrary to the demands of comma i sense, which insists that religion shall be at our service, rather than that we should be at the service of our religion. The Cross stands for self-sacrifice on the part of Him Who suffered for us men and for our salvation, and foi self-sacrifice on the part of those who would share ils redemption. The Centre of Christianity is always the Cross, and if we would be Christians It must be borne by u-i for the same purpose as was in the heart of Christ. We must suffer to put away sin, in ourselves and in the community of which we are a part. This is not always common sense, but it has its own recompense and its own joy. We are bidden to the companionship of sacrifice. “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and lake up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.”