«As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died» (Galatians 6:14).
During the first years of his ministry, Reverend George Bennard fervently prayed to have a better understanding of the Cross and its role in Christianity. So he spent many hours studying, praying and reflecting, until he was finally able to say, «1 saw the Christ of the Cross as if I was seeing John 3:16 leave the page, take form and act out the meaning of redemption» It was in those days that the theme of his well known song came up. It immediately became popular, after it was introduced in a convention in Chicago and spread throughout the Christian world.
Christ’s cross has caused great debates, contradictory messages, inexcusable fights in His name and unjust deaths of martyrs and oppressed people.
To many, it’s a difficult, incomprehensible and even grotesque subject to explain; something they can ‘t quite reconcile with the image of Jesus.
As Adventists we don’t worship the image, but the God who loved us to the utmost, even to the point of enduring the kind of death the cross represented
The chapter entitled «Calvary» in The Desire of Ages gives us a broader, more complete image of the meaning of the cross and all it implied for Jesus and ourselves.
Today I invite you to read the entire chapter, gratefully sing this hymn and reflect on this quote:
«And all that He endured—the blood drops that flowed from His head, His hands, His feet, the agony that racked His frame, and the unutterable anguish that filled His soul at the hiding of His Father’s face—speaks to each child of humanity, declaring, It is for thee that the Son of God consents to bear this burden of guilt; for thee He spoils the domain of death, and opens the gates of Paradise. He who stilled the angry waves and walked the foam-capped billows, who made devils tremble and disease flee, who opened blind eyes and called forth the dead to life,—offers Himself upon the cross as a sacrifice, and this from love to thee» (ch. 78, p. 755).
