The Cross

I wrote this piece in 2009 as part of a Holy Week Devotional.  It was intended to be read on Good Friday but is as relevant today as it is three days before Easter.

I was walking along Belmont the other day with a friend and her two sons.  The boys, apparently learning about shapes, pointed out various shapes they saw as we walked.  When looking at a corner of sidewalk, the elder of the two said, “A cross.” Excitedly we both praised him for his knowledge and affirmed it was indeed a cross and continued on our way.  As a shape, a cross is insignificant.  A cross is like a square, a circle or a triangle.  However, as a symbol of salvation it means everything.  

When it became two pieces of wood upon Jesus’ back as He carried them to His sacrifice, they became much more than a shape.  When they nailed Him to these two pieces of wood, that shape became everything.

Take a minute and imagine the scene.  Jesus ascends the hill exhausted from carrying the heavy wooden cross, only instead of finding relief from His labor, He has reached the location of His death.  Can you picture it?  Can you really see it?  We hear the story perhaps many times.  The cross was set down.  Jesus waiting as it is prepared.  He is nailed to it.  A painful event in and of itself which we desire to quickly gloss over.  The cross is erected and pain shoots deeper into Jesus’ skin as it is stretch from the pressure of now being what hangs Him on the cross.  

The cross is a shape that changed our world forever.  I am not often aware of the shape in my everyday life.  I forget the difference it made; I forget the pain it caused for my Savior and the rest it bought for me.  

Lord, keep fresh in our minds what happened on Calgary when two pieces of wood formed in the shape of a cross became a catalyst for our sin to forever be forgiven.