Somebody stole the cross. Go figure.
For sure, the news story got my attention. The missing cross is a six-foot tall metal structure that's been embedded in rock and concrete, perched high up on Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert. Veterans placed it there to honor those who've died fighting for their country.
It's been there for 75 years. No problem. Suddenly, it's a problem. People who don't want it there argued against it all the way to the Supreme Court. For now, the Justices said it could stay. But now, somebody just went up there and stole the cross. It's crazy.
As soon as I heard the story, something much more troubling hit me. The cross has gone missing lots of places these days. Places that matter a lot more to God than some mountainside in the desert. I've listened to lots of sermons and Christian radio programs and heard little or nothing about Jesus' cross. I've heard lots of Christian talk about how to have a great marriage, how to raise your kids, how to manage your money, how to have a good self-image, but they never got to the cross.
I've heard some great Bible teaching that was deep and powerful, but the cross was on the margins or not even on the page. We'll talk a lot about important things like justice for the oppressed, compassion for the poor, help for families, but never get to God's game-changer for a sin-broken planet - the cross of Christ.
Sadly, I think of lost people I've known for a long time and talked to about a lot of things, but somehow I've never told them about the cross where Jesus died for them. I suspect I'm not alone. Too often, Christians talk a lot about their church or their faith, but not much about their Savior.
Yeah, somebody stole the cross...from our conversations, from our ministries, maybe even from the center of our hearts.
I know who took it. The one Jesus called "...the thief who comes only to steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10). The devil hates the cross because "having disarmed the powers and authorities, (Jesus) made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15). Satan's death warrant is signed in the blood of Jesus. He knows the power of that cross. The oft-quoted Charles Spurgeon called the cross God's "magnificent magnet." Jesus said about His cross, "When I am lifted up...I will draw all men to Myself" (John 12:32). No wonder Satan says, "Go ahead - talk about anything you want. Just don't mention that cross." The enemy of our souls knows its power and does whatever it takes to erase the cross from our view.
Veterans are outraged that the cross was stolen from that hill. We should be outraged that we've allowed Jesus' cross to be stolen from the center of our hearts and our ministries. "The message of the cross is...the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). I need to be as passionate about elevating that cross as the world and the devil are about eliminating it.
I have the unspeakable privilege of taking a lost friend by the hand and walking with them up a hill the Bible calls Skull Hill...then standing there at the foot of an old rugged cross...and sharing with them the greatest love in the universe. "What He did here was for you." Without that cross, there is no hope...no heaven.