The Lamb Under the Cross
The Lamb Under the Cross
1Cor. 1:17
For Christ… sent me to… preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
What does the Cross mean? What is the power of the Cross? What is it like to live under the Cross? These are the questions we will examine today. There is a common misunderstanding that if you are a Christian, things ought to go better for you in life than if you were not. Christian evangelists on radio and television have a way of promising the world to you if you commit yourself to Christ. There are books by the thousands written by Christian motivational speakers who promise a more successful marriage, better relationships with your children, improved management of your time, and a general all‑round better life if you just follow the principles Christ teaches. But what you don't hear or read much about is the Cross of Christ, because living under the Cross doesn't promise a glorious life on earth. The Cross promises us a life lived in its shadow, and that shadow casts on us a life of daily repentance in which the sinful self is crucified daily. Those who do not live under the Cross prefer a life of personal glory where God supplies all their wants, a life not unlike that which the world happens to promise without God. Instead of the God of the Cross, sinful human nature prefers a God who helps us get all we can in life for our comfort and ease.
So, what is it like to live in the shadow of the Cross? Is it, in contrast to a life of success and riches, a life of sadness and sorrow? At times, yes! The Cross of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is itself a dark shadow of God's judgment against us. It is because of our sin that the cross of Christ exists at all. There are times when the Cross is the reminder of our sin, and our sadness and sorrow is appropriate. But there are those who do not even make room for sorrow over sin. There are churches that call themselves Christian that do not display or talk about sin or the Cross because they are reminders of things that people would rather not think about, a discouragement to human efforts to improve themselves or the world. They would rather think of God as promising success in achievements, happiness in families, and good health in the body by just trying a little harder.
Those who refuse to live under the Cross can see in the Cross only as a symbol of suffering and shame, it is an embarrassment and foolishness. They think it is foolishness because it darkens self‑confidence and it overshadows self‑mastery and belittles their optimistic hopes to prove their own self worth. We are, as a society, for example, hopeful that cloning will make us virtually immortal and God, therefore, unnecessary. Our text warns of empting the cross of its power. Later in the chapter Paul says God's wisdom recognized that our own wisdom could never know God, and so God chose what the world considers foolish, namely the Cross, to save those who have faith in him. The Word of God says,
God chose the foolish things of the world to shame
the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to
shame the strong . . . so that no one may boast before him. (vs. 27)
The foolishness we preach is that God has to saves us, not in a blinding display of His glory, as we might prefer, but in making the innocent Lamb of God - weak and able to suffer and die for us. Who is this God who expects us to live under such an unlikely thing as the Cross? He is the God who wants us to know that it is not by what we think or do that we have reason to be confident in life, but it is by the weakness and seeming foolishness of God that we find our confidence, for as Scripture says, "Let him who boast, boast in the Lord." (vs. 31)
But there is a light in the darkness of the Cross that outshines even the darkness. Although the Cross is the sign of judgment against us, Christ, the Lamb, has lifted that judgment off us and placed it on Himself. Life under the Cross is not only a life lived in the shadows, it is also a new life in Christ. The Cross is the means by which God comes to us in this world to give us real life. In His suffering and death our Lord conquers death and our fear of suffering. In His victory over death our Lord promises to be with us in our suffering and in our dying to give us peace and hope even in the midst of it. And that is the message that makes Christians look foolish in the eyes of the world. When others, fearing suffering, talk about taking matters into their own hands and ending their lives through physician assisted suicide or euthanasia, Christians live with their suffering as a witness to the hope that is in them. While others
grasp for personal control over their out‑of‑control lives, by ending an unwanted pregnancy, those who live under the Cross see God in the midst of the chaos bringing peace to the human heart.
As people who are pro‑life, it is not life itself we proclaim as holy but the One who made us holy through his suffering and death on the Cross. It is the Lamb who endured the Cross on our behalf. It is not life itself that we worship and serve but our crucified and living Lord. We do not hope to avoid the inevitable sufferings of life, but we hope to find our Lord in the midst of them to help us live with it. We live under the Cross, and suffering and death are part of that life. We speak this truth in love, the message of the Cross, to the suffering and the dying and to their loved ones. Keeping the focus on the Cross of Christ prevents us from becoming self‑righteous in our defense of the unborn, in our caring for the unwed mother, in our advocacy for the physically disabled, and in our opposition to the killing of the chronically and terminally ill. We live in the shadow of the Cross, and we are both humbled by it and rejoice in it. We enter the valley of the shadow of the Cross with those in desperate circumstances who are in need of care. And in our own helplessness we come to understand the helplessness of others. Together, as helper and as sufferer, we come together to the foot of the Cross where our crucified and risen Lord is our Help.
As Christians, we live both in the kingdom of God and in the kingdom of this world at the same time. But some live only in the kingdom of this world. Christ's Cross offers forgiveness, healing, and comfort when received in faith, but it brings judgment and damnation when faith is rejected. The word of the Cross is healing medicine to those suffering in the shadow of the Cross, but the word of the Cross is foolishness to those who are spiritually dying.
And in seeing God in His suffering, He opens our eyes to see Him in our own suffering. It is a reflection of the Cross in our lives that He comes to us when and where we least expect to see Him. The righteous person knows that God allows him to suffer in order that he may learn to love God for God's own sake. People who live at the foot of the Cross see the world differently than others do. People who live at the foot of the Cross live there with the Lamb who took the shame and suffering upon himself and returns to us a cross in which we find comfort and hope. In our suffering, we are witnesses to the suffering of Christ, the Lamb under the Cross, who gives us life!
Amen