Magyar Egyház, 1954 (33. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)

1954-04-01 / 4. szám

I

10

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

ENGLISH

SECTION

THE CROSS OVER THE WORLD

“God forbid Lord, this shall never

happen to you.” — (Matt. 16:21-23.)

The day on which Christ revealed to his disciples that he must suffer and die, divided the world’s history into two parts. Before, mankind had never fathomed that the world would one day be set under the sign of the cross. But ever since this revelation, it is hard to comprehend how the world ever existed apart from the cross. And yet there was a way-of-life, a culture, a religion apart from the cross. There was a world under the carefree, friendly sky of Greece and Sicily; a world where gods were like men and men vere equal to the gods; a world where there were thousands of ways to reach heaven; a world in which life flowed unconcerned, light, carefree. Even among the disciples of the Lord there was an expectation of such a life — a Kingdom without the Cross! They had been witnesses of the powerful words of Christ and of the mighty deeds performed by the Lord. They had heard from His very lips, the interpretations of His deeds: “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you.” (Matt. 12.28.) Why shouldn’t that Kingdom of God become always mightier without a cross. And they were thunder-struck when Christ announced to them the imminent catastrophe, suffering, the cross, and death. Out of their deep disappointment, out of the sorrow of their hearts, and because of their love for their Master, Peter their spokesman, resisted: “Be it far from thee, Lord. This shall not be unto you.” He and the others were willing to go with him to the end of the world. They were readv to follow Him into Asia Minor, into Greece, even into Rome, away from the enemies in Jerusalem to other people who would appreciate and iove him and would accept him. But Christ rejected the offer most severly: “Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offence unto me, for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of men.”

But why is the offer Peter such a satanic tempta tion, equal to the temptation of the devil in the wilderness? Because the advice given by Peter was “of men”, exactly as the promises the devil made in the wilderness were “of men” not “of God”. Both temptations are of the same nature. Christ is tempted to forsake his Messianic task. He is to be the suffering servant of God. He takes upon himself the sins of the world. He has hardly received this mission from God when Satan appears and tries to turn him away from his task. And now, so does Peter. But Peter does not speak only for himself. He represents mankind, and mankind does not simply intend to spare Christ from the cross; it wants to spare itself! The well-intended words “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you” means really, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to us.” Spare us and spare our world from ever coming under the cross.

Once Christ is nailed on the cross the unconcerned attitude toward God must cease. For then it is apparent how ill, how evil, how rebellious, how depraved mankind is, and something else comes to light too, namely, that God does not allow Himself to be mocked and defied by mankind, to be put aside and made harmless. In holy anger He unloads His judgement upon rebellious man. In holy earnest death, the wages of sin, is inflicted upon man. Man’s situation is totally hopeless. But hope is seen on the cross. The Son of God and the Son of Man is the faithful mediator. He takes upon Himself both the assault from below and the judgement from above making reconciliation and peace between God and man. The cross brings to light that there is only one place in the world where man can flee and be saved from the curse of his sin. There is but one place where he can find defence against the threat of judgement. And this place is the cross. There is but one way to heaven, a narrow and straitway and this way is the mercy of God, which can be granted only at the cross.

This is exactly what Peter the representative of mankind refused to face when he said, “God forbid Lord! This shall never happen to you.” We don’t want to come under the cross, where we are entirely exposed and need mercy. We want to live a life without the cross. We would like to build a life which would be unconcerned, free, unlimited, unrestrained. We would live under the carefree skies of Greece. We would like to have a religion without the cross, a religion in which there are a thousand ways to reach heaven. We would make a religion in which God is neighborly toward us, as a friend. We wuold like to become the pampered children of a dear and amiable heavenly Father. We would like to see a successful church. But we would like to forget about the crisis, about repentance, about the narrow gate.

These human longings are rejected by our Lord. He sees our world as it is in its crisis and need. He knows that we cannot be spared the cross and therefore neither can He be spared. Thus He is ready for the cross. And so the cross becomes an irrevocable and irrefutable fact for the whole creation. Man will constantly try to flee from the cross to build a world under the carefree, friendly sky of Greece. But since the cross become a fact, since the cross is a reality, the world apart from the cross cannot be anything but a world of glitter and fraud. Man will not succeed in this world apart from the cross. Instead, he falls under the rebuke of Christ, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

But Christ also points out the right way of discipleship in this connection (v.24) “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” In this Easter season, let us heed this earnest call of our Lord to gain life from beneath His cross.

(Church Herald 1952)— Imre Bertalan