Focus on the Cross

 

Focus on the Cross

(Pause for a moment of reflection with me on the Gospel text for the Second Sunday in Lent)

John 3:1-17

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%203%3A1-17&version=ESV

Take a look at the passage above from John 3. It's about life. It's about birth. It's about heaven. It's about sacrifice. It's about love. It's about choice. It's about focus.

A religious leader of the day, Nicodemus, came in the dark of night to have a talk with Jesus. Word had spread about Jesus and his ministry on earth. Nicodemus wanted to see for himself the man that all the talk was about, Jesus. Nicodemus came to see Jesus to have a first hand experience. The encounter with Jesus would result in Nicodemus great admiration of Jesus, and Nicodemus would stand as a friend of Jesus. Nicodemus recognized that God was acting through Jesus with a different ministry, so he wanted to find out for himself. But he came in the darkness. He came in darkness and was to witness Light.

Just as Nicodemus came in the dark, I too walk in the dark. I walk in the dark and can see the Light of God in Jesus. I walk in flesh and I walk in spirit as well. 

Jesus wastes no time and jumps right at Nicodemus and tells him that to see the kingdom of God, one must be born anew or in other words, born from above. Well, Nicodemus hadn't even posed a question yet and it's like Jesus went straight to the point of everything! It was after this first verbal volley of Jesus that Nicodemus now had a huge question. Huh? What are you talking about, Jesus!

First off, how do I see the Kingdom of God? To see the Kingdom I need to enter the Kingdom and once I enter the Kingdom of God I see eternal life. So, yea, I want to see this kingdom!

So, Jesus lobs another verbal bomb towards Nicodemus about being born anew. Some interpreters term this, born from above. Then Jesus takes it even further with a little spin on the ball about flesh and spirit. So, what's it all about?

Jesus bids me to break away into a new realm of being. To be born anew. New birth comes from God, not from man. All life is from God, but this new life is born not of the will of man, but of the will of God. This is a new life, born anew, begotten from above and from the beginning.

What? I've lived a life and made myself into what I am at present. How can I undo all that? All that life stuff is done and over with and a part of my past that I can't just dump. 

It seems in these words of Jesus, that I need to be a new man. God doesn't want to tweak me here or there or fiddle around with me. God wants something new! Something without a past. Something that has the new human smell to it.

And then it happens! The Spirit blows and dull flesh becomes spirit through the action of God. God chooses me, God chooses you, God chooses Nicodemus. God acts.

But just how does God act?

Well, that's where the "Focus on the Cross" jumps out at me from Jesus recollection of the Israelites in the wilderness seeking healing as Moses lifted the serpent up on a pole. I need to understand Jesus crucified. 

As I Focus on the Cross, It's God's action alone. On that cross I see the love of God acting out on my behalf, shedding his blood to shed my sin into the eternity of gone for good, in order that I can live anew. 

It's upon that cross that I am called to eternal life here, now and forever. Called out all shiny and new. Called out to a new life to live into that vast open area of time and space beyond imagination. 

Look at Jesus on that cross. Focus on the cross. It's God's action alone. On that cross, life will grow from less to more and from more to most. Focus on that cross and see flesh to spirit to something entirely new. Focus on that cross and see Christ, my Savior, your Savior. See Jesus and listen to his words of forgiveness, his words of grace and his words of paradise to the thief at his side. Trust in the Word you and I hear as you and I Focus on the Cross. 

And, as you and I Focus on the Cross... guess what? You don't have to give your heart to Jesus. No! Jesus does it all for you. Jesus snatches your heart right from the middle of your chest and claims your heart as his own. That's Love! 

Focus on the Cross and see healing, salvation and life born anew, from above, in the spirit. See Jesus action and your new life, right there on that cross. Focus on the Cross.

Focus on the Cross --- Will you run away? Or will you run towards? Towards a new life prepared for you with no action on your own. No strings attached. Free! A free life in the eternal Kingdom of God beginning right now, and lasting forever and ever.

Yes, Focus on the Cross and see a Call, a Promise, a Journey and a totally easy Response.

"We love, because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." John 3:16-17

Thank you Jesus for causing Nicodemus, and me, to stumble through the darkness to encounter your Light and your Love, to reveal our new life in the Kingdom of God... today... tomorrow... and forever - Amen.