As Good Friday approaches I’ve been thinking a lot about the Cross and how it was the opposite of what anybody expected and how today  God continues to work in a cross-shaped way in our lives.

The Cross reminds me that there are times when, despite doing your best to follow Jesus and believe he has good stuff in storefor you, suddenly things can go haywire and it looks like God flew the coop? You’re rocked. All the air goes out of your balloon. You ask yourself what’s going on because it looks like you failed and your faith has been a waste of time, just the way the crucifixion at the time made no sense at all to Jesus’ followers and family. To them it looked utterly chaotic and pointless.

But it also reminds me of something Jesus said about the Cross and dispite what it looked like, what it really accomplished. He said that God’s plan to defeat evil and save the world would not  happen in a nice, smooth, easy way. it would happen through his messy death. He said that just like a grain of wheat must die so that it can bear more fruit, his death would produce new fruit, fruit you wouldn’t believe if someone tried to tell you about it. (see John 12:20-28).

When I think about the Cross I’m reminded that just like in the case of the dying seed, God puts the world in right working order by means of a Servant who looks as though he has failed. He does the opposite of what people expect him to do and suffers apparent failure, degredation and shame. But Jesus said don’t let that throw you. It may look as though the powers of the world are passing judgment on him as he’s nailed to the bloody Cross, but what’s really happening is God is judging and defeating them (see John 12:31-32).

As we approach Good Friday remember when things are crazy in your life you have the Cross. Does it seem like things have gone down the tubes for you lately? Are you carrying some pain, sorrow, or disappointment that’s weighing you down? Have you been praying and finding no relief? Dispite the way things look, claim that victory over the powers which Jesus won on the Cross. In prayer place your confusion, grief, fear, disillusionment, like seeds into the soil of the love that went to the Cross for you. Pray that as they die there and produce new fruit – new life, along with new hope and possibilities for your life.

See you Sunday,
Mike T