Magyar Egyház, 1953 (32. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
1953-03-01 / 3. szám
10 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ ENGLISH THE GLORY OF THE CROSS By Stephen Szőke A Meditation Based on "Jesus Christ and His Cross” by F. W. Dillistone "In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o’er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime.” I cannot understand Good Friday or Easter separately, only together. I can grasp the meaning of the cross only in the light of the resurrection, and life in the light of the cross. Even the Son of Man must be lifted up upon the cross if he is to gain the exaltation of a universal lordship. When His hour has come Jesus Christ was made the instrument of the final revelation of the glory of God. What makes the cross glorious? What makes me glory in the cross? What is this cross? The place of triumph. Triumph may be a thing of the moment, or an occasional event as a victory march; the triumph of the cross was the crisis of all time, the decisive intervention of the living God in history. This triumph, this intervention was a deathblow to the demonic forces operating in human life. The travail of ages has come to a single outward expression on Calvary. There death advanced upon the Son of God. He was crucified, dead, and buried. But He broke the power of death. The resurrection is the triumph of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus over the law of sin and death, over evil. "It is the triumph of the spirit of righteousness and peace and joy over the spirit of pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy.” The place of forgiveness. The Apostle affirms that in Christ "we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” In the triumph over evil the power of the cross is general, in the forgiveness of sins it is more personal. "I stand in need of a religion of pardon and grace”, as David Swenson declares it in The Faith of a Scholar, "of a religion that offers and effects a relationship to God that can reconstitute the integrity of the personality. As a child I was told I needed such a religion, but I did not at first understand this to be so; later I came to understand it. And now at the age of sixty, having spent a lifetime in the use of such powers of reflection as I have, and in the exploration of my self through experience ... I still know no better than that what my mother told me was and is the simple truth. But one thing is certain; no man who approaches the Godidea from any other standpoint than from the standpoint of his own moral imperfection will ever have occasion to know the height and breadth and depth of the love of God, which passes all human understanding.” (p. 135f.) The place of forgiveness of sins is Golgotha, the cross of Christ. But this is most personal. I must be convinced that my sin is the kind of sin that brought Jesus to death, that I had a share in the sin that crucified the Lord, and that Jesus’ forgiveness is the kind of forgiveness that I need. Jesus standing by me in my sin and pleading, "Father, forgive him.” The forgiveness was bought at a price. The cross itself is the symbol of what it cost God to forgive. The place of living sacrifice. Because of the unlimited mercy of God Through Christ, His people are to present themselves as a living sacrifice: "they are to live henceforth, not unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again.” The cross is the place of man’s response to the sacrifice of God — which is possible "if man identifies himself with the perfect offering of the Son to the Father.” We express this in our worship services, also through hymns — which are to be the praises, not only of our lips, but of our life. "When the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, me life, my all.” (Watts) "And can it be, that I should gain An interest in the Saviour’s blood? Died He for me, who cause His pain —For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love how can it be That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” (Wesley) We all make sacrifices, but those "sacrifices” do not go to the very center of our life. Many times we hold back, and they do not involve our whole personality, our total self. Christ offered all, His total self. I cannot explain the cross in so many words, it has to be taken up, lived. Even Christ had to take it up in order to explain it. And "if any man would come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” "My sinful self my only shame, My glory all, the cross.” SECTION
