The Cross of Christ

The cross of Christ doesn’t make sense in the modern Western world. It was an instrument of execution and the Romans felt that Jesus was enough of a danger that He should be executed — that’s all. The idea that Jesus was paying for the sins of the world doesn’t connect with a generation that has lost its sense of personal sin and guilt. We in the West have replaced those parts of the biblical understanding of the human condition with some pop psychology and relativistic morality through which we pretend to ‘escape’ the consequences for our rebellion against God’s laws. We tend to think that almost everything we choose to do in our pursuit of happiness is okay, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else. We tend to think that as long as we’re roughly as good as our neighbors and the people we work with, we have nothing to fear and that, after death, we will go to a ‘better place’. In the meantime, our culture has let itself off the hook. What about the cross of Christ? Why did Jesus die? If He died for you and to pay the just penalty for your sin, what will He do about your rejection of His sacrifice and your determination that you don’t need the cross.

During the month of March, the weeks leading up to Easter Sunday, we will explore the meaning of the cross of Christ and deal with many of the questions people have about its purpose and its ongoing meaning in our daily lives.