The Center of Things

    During our visits to family, we routinely drive through the small town of Edgar Springs, Missouri, which boasts a sign proclaiming it to be the population center of the United States. We do not know how some statisticians arrived at such a calculation. It is intriguing, nevertheless, to know that this little burg has some notoriety as a center of one of history’s major world powers.

    Outside of Jerusalem of Judea is the likely place that Jesus of Nazareth died by the Romans’ practice of crucifixion. In political and geographical terms, the area is insignificant. In numerical terms, His cross was just one of thousands employed during Roman reign. However, in spiritual terms, His cross is the center of the universe; and that is so without any statistical manipulation.

    His cross was the center of God’s plan to reconcile man to Himself. Redemption of mankind comes through Christ’s blood there shed (John 19:25-27; 1 Peter 1:18-19), and “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times…” (1 Peter 1:20).

    His cross is the center of the Christian attitude. The only boasting in this life of any validity is in the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:14). By it, one is crucified to the world, and the world to Him. “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). They have put away the things that make for sinfulness—indeed, the things that sent Christ to the cross.

    Christ’s cross is the center of Christian living. Paul said it eloquently:

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

    To unbelievers, Christ’s cross is the reason for rejecting the offer of eternal life. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Jews regarded Christ’s cross as an aberration in their progression toward an earthly Messiah. He was, to them, a stumbling block in their plans (1 Corinthians 1:22). Greeks who sought wisdom and power regarded the story of a crucified criminal as a common one, and regarded the continued preaching of Him weak foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:23-25). Still today, those who reject Christianity must begin by arguing against the spiritual good of Christ’s cross and the historical reality of His ensuing resurrection. Neither can they do successfully.

    The cross of Christ is the center of all things. Those who admit and cling to its efficacy can benefit from its reconciling power (2 Corinthians 5:14-19). Those who reject this glorious Gospel have no such hope, but a dreadful expectation (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9). Is the cross of Christ the center of your life?