Back to the Cross -- our Focus in Crisis and Everyday

I don’t know about you, but I have been so distracted these past couple weeks. So much to process. So much to try to wrap my head around. So much still going on with COVID-19 ramping up in the US.

Whatever Lenten Meditation I traditionally do at this time of the year has been distracted and even sporadic.

Every Lent for the past 8 years, I have shared reflections on Jesus’ words from the cross. I love to think deeply on each of Christ’s words. And even though I wrote them down as the Holy Spirit illumined my mind and heart, I read them fresh as coming from another pen.

So I’m starting over again this week. Would you like to join me?

Good!

Let’s focus afresh for the remaining weeks of Lent on our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Savior and our Friend. And let’s position ourselves beneath His Cross, hearing Christ’s precious Words spoken to us personally.

The centrality of the Cross changes everything. When you receive the Good News that Jesus died for you, the result is like dropping a rock in a smooth pond: The ripples radiate outward to the farthest edges of reality. It is the death of Christ that enables us to die to ourselves. It is his death that justifies us before God’s perfect righteousness, that sets us free, that gives us courage to face persecution. The community centered on the Cross is a great company of people reconciled to God and each other through the Cross. People centered on the Cross know how to die, learn how to live, and love like they’ve been forever changed by the love they’ve received.
This is the open secret of how Christians attend to the death of Christ.
Fred Sanders, “Centered on the Cross,” Christianity Today 2020