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Recently, I read the following analogy of the need to understand both the cross and the resurrection.
When I eat a ham and cheese sandwich, you don’t discuss whether the ham or the cheese as most important. It’s a ham and cheese sandwich. It’s the same with the cross and the resurrection; both determine the grace that sets us free from sin.
Since this illustration of ham and cheese came from a renowned scholar, though most people don’t think of a sandwich when considering Easter weekend, I thought we should learn on this Saturday — the day between the cross and the resurrection — the importance of both.
The Cross…
We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:23, ESV).
The cross makes Christianity an anti-religion, as the other religions of the world teach us to feel better. Religions project our needs, wishes, longings, fears, and seeks what good thing we can do to solve our problems. As one theologian writes, “The religious imagination seeks uplift, not torture, humiliation, and death.”
The Gospel writers didn’t want us to miss the point of the cross; one-fourth to one-third of the total length of the four Gospels describes the Passion of Christ. I personally believe that the cross was more unexpected than the resurrection. It’s not hard to imagine God dying and then coming back to life; what’s more difficult would be a death on the cross. As a writer says, “Without the cross, the resurrection is just another piece of divine dazzlement.”
The cross is defeat, humiliation, loneliness, abandonment, pain, and nailing everything on the cross for public inspection, and yet through the crucifixion we see the true nature of God. This graphic testimony of God’s love should bring our self-seeking vanities to repentance.
The Resurrection…
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, NIV).
Apostolic preaching about Jesus and His death, burial, resurrection, and ensuing infilling power of the Holy Spirit is a dominant, if not the dominant, theme of the New Testament. The Greek word for “preaching,” or “kerusso,” is used about 70 times in the New Testament.
This preaching begins with the cross and ends with the resurrection, and properly understood by the conviction of the Spirit, ends with one of two decisions — belief for salvation or resistance to eternal loss.
The radical message of the cross and resurrection changed the world.
As the cross emphasizes penalty, the resurrection indicates victory. It’s more than “Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55), but power for a changed life of testimony to those we know. When I first became a Christian and told someone that I had, they were so shocked (knowing my previous life) that they listened in stunned silence as I told them (preached) the reason.
Cross and Resurrection…
My prayer for all of us: Let us experience the cross but live the resurrection! It’s lunch time, and I’m ready for a ham and cheese sandwich. How about you?
Note: I will continue my “Saturday’s Revelations on Revelation” next week.