Few days back our team was doing sign board evangelism at a busy intersection. Many read the boards that we held up, some appreciated and some others disregarded it. I was holding a board which mentioned, “Jesus could heal you”. As I was standing there a car came by and stopped for the signal; the person who was in it shouted at me, “How miserable and a shameful death did Christ suffer at the cross, do you believe he has the power to heal?”. By then the signal turned green and he left the place. For days the words of this person echoed within me. I wondered what message did some perceive out of the sacrificial death of the Son of God. Do they just perceive His weakness and ignore the abounding love, grace and humility at the cross? I am so inspired to write about this; along with me, could you dear reader think for a while, what message of the cross did impact your heart? The millions who believe Christ, His crucifixion and resurrection, for sure did not receive a message of a weak Christ, but a powerful Son of God who was made perfect through His weakness at the cross.
The cross is seen in ancient times as an instrument of death; torturous, shameful, excruciatingly painful. The person who is crucified is left to hang until death, exposing their agony to the public. The death of Jesus, taking this heinous form of death, did it make Him powerless and weak? For many the death of Christ astounds as a foolish thing. They stumble at the cross; they cannot see further beyond the cross where Christ was raised up in glory. They see the road closed by the shamefulness of cross. They question Him if you were really the Son of God, why did you give yourself for death? but they fail to recognize the answer.
1 Corinthians 1:22-24, “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God”. After the death of Christ, many Jews could not comprehend the death of Messiah; they expected their Messiah being a conqueror, establishing a kingdom and doing many signs that pleased them. Jesus did not restore the throne of David; they could not comprehend the foolishness of cross, where the one they expected to be the Messiah, died the death of a criminal. Consider the Greeks now, they did not believe in resurrection, so they could not see the leap behind the cross. They could not see the characteristics and mystical strengths and supernatural powers of their mythological Gods in Christ. They considered cross as a defeat and never a victory. When Christ stepped into this world, He was here to destroy the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent. To be saved by someone who could not save himself is stupidity to many. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” 1 Corinthians 1:18. When the plain message of cross is unable to gratify the wise and affluent, it is been revealed to the called in abounding measures, for them it is strength made perfect in weakness.
Philippians 2:6-8,“have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”. In my study bible I happen to see that this may be a song sung by the early church due to its resemblance with Isaiah 53. The reason why Christ choose the cross, the miserable human form leaving the riches and his equality with God the father is simply His choice. Out of His love extending to us, he considered it all pleasure. Yes, our God is a vulnerable God, he became vulnerable enough to take the cross, the shame and pain adhered with the cross- because he became vulnerable towards us through love. The deepest action of love, pouring Him inside out, to the extend no one can comprehend the depth. He choose man hood instead of divinity, so that I live with Him forever. He became a curse and shame for me so that I am blessed and never condemned. He was judged by this world, so I am salvaged from judgment. He took every pain for me at the cross, so that through His stripes I am healed. The humility at the cross, makes me take rest under the shadow of the cross. For me cross is not defeat, its where I see the victory of my savior, its where I see His love stretching out for me. The cross is where I receive grace, healing and justice.
In Christ Jesus,
Smitha Thomas.
Redeemed Ministries.
Six Measures Of Barley 