It captured my attention. The sun shone through our front window and the window cling cross (given to each member of our church family to hang in their home) created a shadow on our wall.

 

When something captures our attention, it causes us to be interested in something.  I could not rush by the shadow created.  I paused.  The cross is a significant piece of the Easter story.

What does the cross mean to you?  If you pause, and consider this image, does it speak to you of anything?

When preparing for a sermon last week I read an interesting line in a book. It shared how the enthusiastic onlookers who gathered, gazing at the events of the crucifixion, gradually dispersed.  Their morbid curiosity was satisfied. What had captured their attention was no longer of interest. They left the scene (Ronald Wallace).

There are things that capture our attention and then, like that, we forget about them.  The ‘thing’ that captures our attention can even be the cross.  The cross is not meant to only capture our attention it is meant to capture our lives. 

On the cross, the unending love of Christ is demonstrated. Paul, who knew this deep love of Jesus wrote, “For the love of Christ controls (constrains) us, since we have concluded this, that Christ died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

I return us to the writings of Ronald Wallace. He speaks of the love of Christ demonstrated on the cross. In 1964 he wrote, “Can this event, which meets the whole world’s need really also meet the whole of my individuals need in all its pressing and urgent details? Do my future on this earth, my desolation of heart, my perplexities over a multitude of trivialities, matter to him who is so revealed in this cross?  Wallace continues, sharing that ‘all things’ comes within the scope of the love of Christ Jesus, demonstrated on the cross. “If God is for us, who can be against us?  Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

This love of Christ, more than captures our attention.  It is meant to ‘constrain us’ says Paul. “The word constrain means a narrowing down and a forcing of our lives into channels of service and sacrifice.” The one who gives us his all is certainly due a response of complete attention – the giving of our entire lives.

In two days, it will be Good Friday and the cross of Christ will be before us. May the cross of Christ, once again, capture our attention in a way that grabs hold of us and will not let us go. May our curiosity of, and interest in the cross, never be settled.

As we sing this hymn of the church, by Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, we pay attention to the lines that capture our attention. I have added a verse, she wrote, which is not often included in hymnals.   Let us find comfort, strength, and purpose, as she did, as we draw near to the cross of Christ.

161: Beneath The Cross Of Jesus

1. Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty Rock
Within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness,
A rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat
And the burden of the day.

2. Upon that cross of Jesus
Mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of one
Who suffered there for me;
And from my smitten heart, with tears,
Two wonders I confess:
The wonder of His glorious love,
And my own worthlessness.

3. O safe and happy shelter,
O refuge tried and sweet,
O trysting place where Heaven’s love    (trysting means an appointed meeting or meeting place)
And Heaven’s justice meet!
As to the holy patriarch
That wondrous dream was giv’n,
So seems my Savior’s cross to me,
A ladder up to Heav’n.

4. I take, O cross, thy shadow
For my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than
The sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by,
To know no gain nor loss,
My sinful self my only shame,
My glory all the cross.

Giver of the cross, which sets us free to truly live, open our hearts to the wonder of the cross once again.  Eternal God, by your Spirit, draw our attention to that which has cosmic significance. Remind us that in the death of Jesus life is found and through his resurrection this life is lived. AMEN.

With care and in prayer,