All about the Cross

God identifying with humanity.
God commanding humanity to love one another.
God demonstrating that love as Word made Flesh.
God including those not included by some in the faith.
God touching those considered untouchable.
God resisting the evils of empire in word and action.
God giving Kingdom value alternatives to empire.
God taking sides.
God showing what faithfulness is, often in the most unlikely people.
God showing what real power is, even in the apparently weak.
God willingly being subjected to false accusations,
    and arrest,
    torture,
    a sham trial,
    and execution.
God died.  Horribly.  Scandalously.  Fully.  Willingly.  Like so many among us have.
To redeem us from the fruits of sin, which is death, God took on our death,
    even a most humiliating form of death.
To give us new resolve, new hope, new dedication, new direction, new life.
What wondrous love is this!

What kind of God does that?
What kind of people would follow that God?
Emulate that God's exhibitions of love in the world?
Imitate that God's Graciousness in the world?

The temptation to skip the humiliation and heaviness of the Cross for the sake of focus on the glory of Resurrection is very real among many who call themselves by Jesus' name.

Go to the Cross.  Weap.  Be filled with love, a love that makes other loves seem insignificant.
Consider such a God at the Cross.
Consider what it means to FOLLOW such a God in OUR lives.
Deny yourself, take up your Cross and follow.

Because following Jesus is ALL about the Cross.

Pastor Jamie