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Good Friday Devotional - The Cross A Monument of Hope


THE CROSS A MONUMENT
OF HOPE FOR HUMANITY

John 19:16-18

 

Humanity has built and crafted monuments that commemorate humanity’s many achievements.  In New York Harbor there is the Statue of Liberty.  In Washington, D.C. our nation has built memorials to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.  On the famous mall of Washington there is the Washington Monument.  Located nearby is the Vietnam Memorial, which commemorates those who served and died in the Vietnam War. There is also the newly built memorial to the men and women who served our nation in the Second World War.

As believers we also have a monument.  Our monument stands as an emblem of hope for hopeless humanity.  That monument is the cross of Christ.  The cross is a universal symbol of Christianity.  We wear it as a trinket around our necks; we put it atop our steeples, and use it as a symbol on the front of our sanctuaries and buildings.  What is the cross?  It is a universal sign to this lost world of the sacrifice of our Lord for humanities sins.

It was from that cross that the pure, priceless red blood of our Lord flowed down from the cross and mingled with the dust of a fallen planet.  What was God doing on the cross?  He was reconciling fallen humanity back to Himself.  

Why is the cross of Christ important?  A missionary friend builds churches in a communist country.  The government will allow him to construct a building, but there cannot be a cross anywhere on the outside of the building.  The cross is controversial.  The Apostle Paul penned these words in I Corinthians 1:18, “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.”   

The cross stands as a monument of hope today.  There have been many songs written and sung about the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary.  Isaac Watts penned one of the most beautiful of those songs when he wrote, “At the cross! At the cross! Where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away!”  

Have you been to the cross?  Have you bowed in worship?  Have you experienced the freedom that comes when the burden of your heart is rolled away? 

Dr. W. Terry Bailey

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