The Cross makes all the Difference
My church raised the cross last week. Turns out our building, bedecked in urban palettes of black and grey, didn’t display this symbol of Christ. This building also didn’t feature graphics of people or signs of life. This beautiful, stark structure, designed to appear gritty and edgy, wore welcome like a morgue.
I’m proud to see the newly installed cross reach the heavens yet saddened and embarrassed I hadn’t noticed its absence. Crosses represent forgiveness and faith, suffering and victory, death and life.
The cross makes a tremendous difference on buildings and in lives.
As the metal cross soared across the blue sky, against a backdrop of praise and worship, my heart soared with it. The building soon signaled love’s welcome, and memories evoked Kingdom mission.
Jesus cares more about the souls of his people than the look of his church. Yet the building is where diverse people enter to discover God and search hearts. Within these walls, lives heal, souls bow, and tears flow. In these halls, hands clasp together for support, hold others in relationship, and serve together in community.
Church is a place where spiritual hearts mature, not based on age and wrinkles, but in wisdom and understanding. It’s a place where exclusion meets inclusion and loneliness finds a friend; where faith deepens among the faithful, and among those with tattooed arms or virgin skin, God sees commonalities seared into our secret places.
Church is where we first seek comfort, security, and shelter from life’s storms before we learn to seek first the Kingdom of God. As humility replaces pride, we become known, not for who we were dying in sins, habits, and mistakes, but who we are in Christ, thriving in worship, prayer, and love.
Church buildings matter to Jesus as it’s rescue’s structure and gratitude’s container. It holds his people, as spiritual transformation frees us to love unrestrained in workplaces, neighborhoods, and other communities. Once we grasp the cost of the cross and as the Holy Spirit dwells in his people, we understand the cross travels in us. Our job isn’t to remain nestled in the church, secure within its walls, but to go forward and bring in others who need solace and eternal rest. We are moving vessels made in the image of God.
The cross, alive in our hearts, souls, and minds, makes a powerful difference.
The church is for everyone. Within these walls, we learn hallowedness, reframe posture, and redefine knowledge. We assume new roles, learning how to express more love than hate, more grace than anger, more forgiveness than judgement.
We will need God’s enduring love throughout our lives as ultimate transformations will not occur until Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6). Until then, we’ll fail, confess, and try again-coming into the church for healing, going out of the church reflecting Christ. The grace and mercy of the cross, in the building and in our lives, teach, remind, and provide strength to rise every time we fall.
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
-2 Peter 3:9 ESV
How we cling to the cross when man fails us and we fail God matters. These times both refine and define each of us. Broken people land on bended knees looking again for the cross through tears and reaching with open hands for its foundation.
The cross makes all the difference, on buildings and in lives. Jesus, fully man and fully divine, died on the cross for his people. On the building, his cross represents a sanctuary with united purpose. For everyone to heal, seek, grow, and love. In our lives, his cross seals a hope with faithful expectation. For everyone to enter, learn, rejoice, and live.
The cross makes all the difference.
