PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “The Cross is in the Cross-Hairs!”

By:  Ron Woodrum

     This week I received a video from an Evangelist friend of mine, Dr. Winston Mazakis.  It was a video that showed a group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, demanding the removal of Christian symbols from a Chapel of the East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.  The school, intimidated by the threat of a law suit, agreed to comply.  But after seeing the response of Christians from all over the world they have halted the removal and are having a committee study their options.  Currently, they are still there one year later.  But the battle is not over.  There is a hatred for public display of Christian symbols, especially demands to remove the cross from a military site at Mt. Soledad and Camp Pendleton in California.  This is just the beginning.  It is good for Christians to let their passion and devotion for the Lord, and His Cross to be known.

It made me think of three of my favorite quotes about the cross.  One is by Brennan Manning.  He is discussing the indignity of the Cross…yet it being the greatest display of the Love of God, this is what he said, “But the answer seems to easy, too glib.  Yes, God saved us because He loved us.  But He is God.  He has infinite imagination.  Couldn’t He have dreamed up a different way of redemption?  Couldn’t He have saved us with a pang of hunger, a word of forgiveness, a single drop of blood?  And if He had to die, for God’s sake-For Christ’s sake-couldn’t He have died in bed, died with dignity?  Why was he condemned like a criminal? Why was his back flayed with a whip?  Why was His head crowned with thorns?  Why was he nailed to wood and allowed to die in frightful, lonely agony?  Why was the last breath drawn in bloody disgrace, while the world for which he lay dying egged on his executioners with savage fury like some kind of gang rape by uncivilized brutes in Central Park? Why did they have to take the very best?  One thing we know-we don’t comprehend the Love of Jesus Christ.  We see a movie and resonate to what a young man and woman endure for romantic love.  We know that when the chips are down, if we love wildly enough we will fling life and caution to the winds for the one we love.  But when it comes to God’s love in the broken, blood-drenched body of Jesus Christ we get all antsy and start to talk about theology, divine justice, God’s wrath, and some begin to turn toward the heresy of universalism!” (The Ragamuffin Gospel 1993).  That Cross is the public demonstration of the genuine love of God that would give His best to save us from our worst!

The second quote I love about the cross comes from Malcolm Muggeridge.  He came to Christ late in life.  He talks about how the cross always had a drawing power for him, and that he should have yielded to the Christ of the Cross at a much earlier age and would have had more years to love and serve Him.  He wrote, “I would catch a glimpse of a cross, not necessarily a crucifix; maybe two pieces of wood accidently nailed together, on a telegraph pole, for instance–and suddenly my heart would stand still.  In an instinctive, intuitive way I understood that it was something more important, more tumultuous, more passionate. was at issue than our good causes, however admirable they might be…It was, I know, an obsessive interest…I might fasten bits of wood together myself or doodle it.  This symbol, which was considered to be derisory in my home, was yet also the focus of inconceivable hopes and desires…As I remember this, a sense of my own failure lies leadenly upon me.  I should have worn it over my heart:  carried it, a precious standard never to be wrested out of my hands…it should have been my cult, my uniform, my language, my life.  I shall have no excuse:  I can’t say I didn’t know.  I knew from the beginning and kept turning away” (Jesus Rediscovered. pp.24-25).  His cross should be our cult, our uniform, our language, our life!  But the last quote lets us know that it is not just a private devotion to the cross.  The cross was public!  Very public.  It must always remain that way for us!

George MacLeod reminds us of that very fact.  He says, “The cross must be raised again in the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the Church, (or the University chapel steeple), I am claiming that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves, on the town garbage heap, at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.  At the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where He died, and that is what He died about…and that is where His followers ought to be, and what His followers should be about!”  (Only One Way Left. 1966 p. 38). Amen!  Keep cherishing “that Old Rugged Cross!”

PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “The double-weakness of an unguarded strength!”

     If you visit a German museum in Berlin Germany you will see a very special air plane.  It is a Reims Cessna F172P.  It is a plane that is famous for one of the most historical flights of all time.  On May 27th, 1987 Mathias Rust, a teenager from West Germany, had rented this plane to get some hours learning to fly.  He flew this plane from Hamburg to Stockholm.  On his return flight home, in response to a dare from his friends, he decided to veer off course.  He shut off his communication radio and decided he would land in the impenetrable defenses of Moscow.    To the surprise of the world, Mathias Rust landed on a bridge in Red Square…near the Kremlin in the Capitol of the Soviet Union.  Remember, Clint Eastwood’s Firefox movie about hijacking the famous Russian Jet (MiG-31 in the movie) was actually the Tupolev Tu 144-Konkordski.  But the movie was a fictional portrayal of an actual defection of a Russian fighter pilot Viktor Belenko who defected to Japan in 1976 with the pilot’s manual to this aircraft.  But nothing like the movie, and certainly nothing like this actual invasion into Red Square.  Rust was immediately arrested and was sentenced to four years in prison in a labor camp for hooliganism…actually served his time in a high security prison in Moscow.  Due to the meetings of Reagan and Gorbachev that occurred two months later, Rust was released in August 1988 as a goodwill gesture to the West.  His invasion of Red Square had a devastating effect on the Soviet military.  It led to the dismissal of many senior officers and helped Gorbachev implement his drastic reforms that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union!  The mighty Soviet Union, so easily invaded, was never quite viewed in the same way!

     Several years ago, I remember reading Oswald Chambers say-“An unguarded strength is a double weakness”.  What happened in the Soviet Union 30 years ago should be a lesson to us.  When we begin to think that we are so strong that no one or nothing can penetrate that defense, we need to place a double guard there!  Otherwise that strength will become a double weakness to us.  What happened to the Soviet Union is not the first instance of such things occurring in history.  In his book on Letters to the Seven Churches, William Barclay tells the story of something that happened to the city of Smyrna.  He tells of how Smyrna was built on top of Mt. Timlous.  This mountain was very high and had a ridge-like rock protruding like a pier at the top that made the city nearly impregnable!  It was a citadel defying capture!  When King Cyrus of Persia was conquering the world of his day, he laid siege to Smyrna.  It seemed that he would fail, and this failure might just be the obstacle to his conquest.  But the Greek historian Herodotus tells of something that happened that changed history-certainly the history of Smyrna!  As the Persians were watching the city of Smyrna, A Mardian soldier belonging to Cyrus, witnessed a Lydian soldier of Smyrnia drop his Helmut over the cliff of Mt. Timlous.  He watched carefully as the soldiers descended the wall, pick his way down the cliff to recover his Helmut, then this soldier, Hyeroeades watched carefully as this soldier made his way back up to the top, and disappear back into Smyrna.  After memorizing the path, Hyeroeades, and a number of Persian soldiers, following the same route, scaled the cliff, and found the defenders completely unprepared and they took the city without much resistance!  Their strength became their double weakness. 

     The Bible is clear.  We are told “let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall”.  I Cor. 10:12. Ask Jericho and its impenetrable walls.  Ask Babylon and its magnificent Walls.  Ask Samson and his bulging biceps and mountainous muscles.  Ask Goliath if there were chinks in his armor against that little shepherd boy that came to him in the power of the Lord.  In these last days, take heed, an unguarded strength, is your Achilles heel!  Don’t let history repeat itself.  Amen?

PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “A BRIDGE WORTH CELEBRATING!”

By:  Ron Woodrum

     It was called “the bridge that could not be built”.  It was first proposed in 1872 by Charles Crockett, railroad executive, 3 years after completing the Trans-continental Railroad. It was a bridge to span the strait that separated San Francisco from Marin County California, because of the California Peninsula.  But the narrowest span was more than one mile of very turbulent current of ocean.  Capt. John Freemont, in 1846, had named it Chrysophylae, Greek for “golden gate”…thus the proposed bridge would be called the “Golden Gate Bridge”.  A study determined that a bridge could be built, but the cost would likely be 100 million dollars!  It was decided that it would be built in 1916.  All the various attempts met one obstacle after another even getting started.  Finally, construction was begun on January 5, 1933, kicked off by a speech by President Herbert Hoover, a 21-gun salute, and a great celebration.  The company that made the cables for Brooklyn Bridge was contracted to make cables for Golden Gate.  Two cables were made that would be 7, 659 feet long each.  Each would be constructed with 27, 572 parallel wires-enough to circle the globe at the equator 3 times!  Construction was slowed due to the high wind and risky work.  20 men fell to their death in San Francisco Bay.  More men were almost killed when an earthquake hit in June of 1935, almost collapsing the entire structure.  In 1936 a safety net was hung below the bridge to keep the workers from plunging to their deaths.  Still 19 men fell off the bridge but were saved by the net.  They became part of an exclusive club-“THE HALF-WAY TO HELL CLUB!”  The bridge was finally completed on April 19, 1937.  It was opened with a week-long celebration on May 27-June 2 1937.  It weighed a total of 894,500 tons.  The architect was Irving Morrow.  The Engineer was Joseph Strauss, (and Charles Ellis).  Strauss was not only an Engineer but also a poet.  He dedicated the bridge with a poem:  THE MIGHY TASK DONE

At last the mighty task is done

Resplendent in the Western Sun

The Bridge looms Mountain High

It’s Titan piers grip the ocean floor

It’s great steel arms link shore to shore

It’s towers pierce the sky!

On the first day of the opening 18,000 were waiting to cross at Sunrise.  FDR initiated the opening by a telegraph key.  People crossed on roller skates…pogo sticks…unicycles…and stilts! Vendors set up stands on the bridge and over 50,000 hot dogs were sold.  That week over 200,000 pedestrians crossed it.  Each evening it was celebrated with fireworks.

The one billionth vehicle crossed the bridge on February 22, 1980.  On May 24, 1987 they held the 50th Anniversary of the Bridge’s opening.  They expected 50,000 pedestrians to cross.  800,000 showed up.  As they crossed the load was so heavy it pushed the bridge weight limits to their limit!  The bridge bottomed flat out but did not collapse!  One of the official said, “The Suspension cables were tight as harp strings!  This was not a good idea!”  But since the bridge has been built it has become an attraction to people wanting to commit suicide.  Since its opening-17,000 people have died jumping from the bridge.  Last year 39 people jumped to their death.  How tragic!  In May crews began installing a safety net to prevent suicides from the bridge.  The net will be complete in 2021 at a cost of $211 million.  That too is something to celebrate when finished!

All that being said, the greatest bridge in history was built and erected on a mountain outside the city walls of Jerusalem.  It is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  That cross spans the gulf from earth and sinful man, to heaven and a Holy God.  Job in 9:33 prayed for a Daysman who could come and span the great gulf between sinful man and a Holy God.  I Timothy 2:5 tells us that God has provided that mediator in the person of Jesus Christ, and of course the bridge is the cross, and the cost of building it was the priceless blood of Jesus Christ.  This is the only bridge that leads to heaven.  That is why we sing-“The Way of the Cross leads Home!”  Or “I must needs go home by the way of the cross-there’s no other way but that!”  William Newell has written a celebratory poem about this bridge that later became a triumphant hymn called At Calvary.  Listen to the words:

Oh, the Love That Drew Salvation’s Plan

Oh, the Grace That Brought It Down to Man

Oh, the Mighty Gulf That God Did Span

At Calvary!

That is a Bridge worth celebrating.  That is the Bridge millions have crossed.  That is the bridge that will stand the test of time and eternity!  Don’t miss the bridge!  It is a Bridge worthy of celebration!