As we approach Passion Week, beginning this weekend on Palm Sunday and going through Easter on April 4th, I want to get us all thinking about the significance of what we are celebrating.  To get us started down that path, I’m delighted to have a guest blogger, Sheri Wilson, share some reflections on the cross.  I hope you’ll take time, as she did, to reflect today on what the cross means to you.

As tradition would have it every year at this time we start preparing for Easter. If we are not ashamed to admit it most of us are busy buying the children “Easter outfits”, preparing big family dinners with all the similarities of a Thanksgiving feast, buying Easter baskets, candy, surprises, we use the brightest and most beautiful colors ….come on you know the drill?

So today I am stopping all the busyness to ask myself a question; what does all of the hustle and bustle have to do with the cross? What does the cross mean to me? Is the cross merely a decoration for the church wall, or placed decoratively on the church steeple, have we relegated the cross to being a beautiful trinket that we display as a necklace around the neck?  Hmm….I am wearing a very beautiful cross as I write this. Why are our symbols of the cross so beautiful when the act crucifixion was so gruesome?

When I stop to think about the Cross, I have to admit that my mind will never fully conceive what it meant for Jesus to put on humanity and die for our sin without ever knowing what it meant to be a sinner. Can you imagine carrying the sin of the entire world? Only Jesus knows what it means to carry the burden and weight of the sin of this world. Only HE knows the agony of being beaten, bleeding, scourged and mocked.

The symbol of the cross really has no significant meaning to me. It is the act of the CROSS that is so beautiful.  I know that Jesus dying for my sin was an intentional act for the scripture says “the reason my Father loves me is that I may lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but, I lay it down of my own accord (John 10:17-18, NIV). Wow! What happened on the cross was no accident. Romans 5:8 says: “that why we were yet sinners, Christ was willing to die in our place so that our relationship with GOD might be restored.”   Jesus’ only motive was to restore my relationship that I had damaged with GOD. How beautiful is that! The beauty of the cross is that Jesus taught the disciples in John 15:13 that no greater love exists than for a person to lay down their life for a friend. Jesus calls me friend!  His act of unselfishness was motivated by love.

What the cross means to me is that GOD would give all that he had and was willing to pay any price to save me. Although, the act on the cross happened for all mankind, the meaning is so personal. He died for me! His love for me is not just a bunch of words, but reality expressed at the highest price….HIS life. The cross is so beautiful because it bears a message of unconditional love. When I take up my cross and carry it, I am not carrying a message of difficulty, agony, suffering, or death. I am carrying a message of resurrection, love and forgiveness. Why the bright beautiful colors, the pretty dresses, the message of spring, life, and hope as a symbol for Easter?  Because, the beauty of all the celebration is an acknowledgement that Jesus gave us life. The sacrificial gift of his life represents beauty, life and not death, and a hope that through the resurrection, I can have a relationship with GOD; a relationship that I don’t deserve.