a brief reflection on the cross
This morning, I have been searching for some inspiration for two Easter messages that I am doing. I stumbled across these words in my searching that articulated well, how I was thinking about coming up with something for our Good Friday service at Northern, as well as a easter reflection I am doing at our Bundoora retirement village congregation.
“A Brief Reflection on the Cross
Placing words next to the cross is the greatest feat of a writer.
I have been trying to find the words. I fall short.
Pounding idiotically for years,
through seven computers and countless journals
in sermons, dramatic sketches, blogs, and poems,
distorted and unsuccessful.
The cross outshines my verbosity.
It confounds me
I see it in glimpses.
There is no greater irony:
Beautiful yet ghastly,
Wonderous yet humble,
Shameful yet glorious—
these words cannot seperate themselves from the cross.
There is no greater salve.
It is the cross of Christ.John Wesley reminded us of the mystery of the incarnation when he wrote,
To abandon all, to strip one’s self of all, in order to seek and follow Jesus Christ naked to Bethlehem where He was born, naked to the hall where He was scourged, and naked to Calvary where He died on the cross, is so great a mystery that neither the thing nor the knowledge of it, is given to any but through faith in the Son of God.
I will continue to search for the words
(if for no one else, for me).”
From tullos.org