The Tree On The Hill
John 12:27-33
‘Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!’
Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’ The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, ‘This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.’
One of the worst-judged sermon illustrations I’ve heard of, was in a Christmas sermon (not at Gas Street!) In front of a congregation of families with young children, the vicar took a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and lopped off all the branches until he was left with a bare cross – and a church full of crying children!
He was of course trying to teach the eternal truth that Jesus did not come just to be born but to die for the world’s sins. The rough-hewn wooden cross on a hill is the pivotal point of human history. There is the before; and there is the after.
The Cross is so immense in its significance that we cannot get our heads around it. We say the words ‘The Cross’ so easily but grasp little of its meaning. At the Cross is forgiveness, salvation, healing, death, evil, goodness, mercy, reconciliation, all embracing love, justice, righteous anger, victory, completeness, sacrifice, separation, loss, brokenness, abandonment, majesty, humility, humanity, divinity. Everything has changed; nothing is the same.
How does the Cross work? We cannot say. It is mystery from the heart of Almighty God. We can only approach the Cross empty of human arrogance, nothing in our hands, not expecting to understand it – the only fitting if inadequate words on our lips: ‘Thank you Jesus.’
But if the story had stopped at the Tree on the Hill we would be, as St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 ‘still in (our) sins’ and ‘we are of all people most to be pitied.’ The Cross is not complete without the empty tomb! The Cross is the gateway to Resurrection.
We are not to be pitied; we are SO SO SO unbelievably blessed – we have Salvation forgiveness and Resurrection life! TODAY!
Respond in this moment…