The Uncomfortable Cross

When Jesus walked down the Mount of Transfiguration, He surely had the glory of the heavens resting upon His face.  As surely as His baptism culminated with an affirming vision which sent Him forth into His public ministry, so did the vision on the Mount send Him forth for the final part of the journey.  It was surely a moment which drew the attention of Jesus to the reality that His days were not only becoming fewer, but also harder.  While the cross was no surprise to Jesus, when He left the mountain it began to loom larger and larger before Him.    

Lent is a season for journeying with Jesus toward that looming cross.  While we would rather speak of the end of journey being the empty tomb, the tomb could only become a part of the narrative when the work of the cross was done.  Lent focuses on the cross.  I remember a preacher who preached a noon day service one Good Friday who said before his message, "Now I know today we remember Jesus dying on the cross, but instead of talking about such a bad thing, I am going to preach about the resurrection."  I wanted to stand and say, "Without the cross, there is no resurrection!"   

It is a strange thing the way the church wants to avoid the cross.  It does make people uncomfortable.  No one wants to confess their sins much less acknowledge them.  The Lenten invitation to repent is not something we want to do because it speaks to the fact that there is something wrong within us that can only be handled by what Jesus did on the cross. It all goes against the grain of our conviction that there is nothing we cannot handle or fix.  The gospel proclaims as a necessity the death of Jesus on the cross.  Sometimes it seems the church wants to water down that part of the story.