Treasures of the Cross

 Treasures of the Cross

Growing up in the D.C. area with a mom who was a teacher, not just by training but a teacher in her heart, meant that the Smithsonian was almost as familiar to me as our local playgrounds. While I gravitated toward history and my brother Bill toward science, I was fascinated by the mineral, stone, and gem collection in the Museum of Natural History.   

This was a long hall with displays on the right and left of many-colored and textured rocks, minerals and gems, presented in ways to help the observer best appreciate them. Some were exhibited in dark boxes with just enough light to highlight the beauty and colors of the piece – I recall a yellow piece (a rock or a mineral?) in a black velvet display with a beam of light shining on it, the contrast was striking. 

The journey down the narrow hall progressed in terms of the value of the items displayed, moving into the precious gem section, until at the very end of the corridor you arrived at the Hope Diamond. Many people came primarily to see the Hope Diamond with its many facets. While it has been decades since I’ve visited the Smithsonian, and while my old man’s memory is fading, that hall of gems and precious stones remains with me. 

There is a sense in which the Cross of Christ, though made of wood, is the hall of gems and precious stones for the Christian. (Note the many precious stones found in the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:10 – 27; there are also precious gems, representing the People of God, associated with the garments of the ancient High Priest, Exodus 28:15 – 21.)

Do we realize the many facets of the Cross? Do we see its treasures? 

If I were to ask you to tell me about the Cross of Christ, of why Jesus died and rose again, what would you say? If we were to ask a typical congregation this question, how would the people respond?

Would we hear about our dying with Jesus on the Cross? About our “old man” being crucified with Him, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin (Romans Chapter 6)?

Would our brothers and sisters tell us about dying with Christ on the Cross to the Law, so that we might be married to Christ and freed from our marriage to the Law (Romans 7:1 – 6)?

Would other professing Christians speak to us of there now being no condemnation, of us being set free from the law of sin and death? Would we hear about our glorious sonship in Christ, whereby we cry, “Abba! Father!”? (Romans Chapter 8). 

Is it likely that congregations would tell us that the Cross of Christ crucifies us to the world and crucifies the world to us? (Galatians 6:14). And if we did actually hear this, what would it do to our priorities? What would we do with our Nehushtans and Golden Calves? 

How many professing Christians would speak to us of Galatians 2:20? “I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Is this our Way of Life? 

Would we hear about the Cross of Christ judging Satan and breaking the power of darkness? (Colossians 2:15; John 12:31).

How many would speak to us of being buried with Christ and raised with Him into the heavenly places? (Colossians 2:9 – 14; Ephesians 2:1 – 10). 

I have a book by John Stott titled The Cross of Christ, it is 351 pages. What might this tell us? In other words, how deep does our understanding and experience of the Cross go? Three pages, twenty pages, 351 pages? 

Or do we make it a paragraph or a sentence? “Jesus died on the Cross so my sins can be forgiven?” This is true, but it is one facet of the Diamond of the Cross that contains many facets, and it can’t be deeply appreciated without the other facets – they complement each other. 

The Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ is to be our Way of Life. There is no area, no facet of life, that ought to be outside the Cross of Jesus Christ. The very form of our lives is to be cruciform – it is to display the Cross. 

On this Good Friday let us ponder the treasures of the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. In Christ are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). 

Let us enter into the Cross and allow the Cross to enter into us. Let the Cross be the home in which we live, our heartbeat, our center of gravity, our portal into the Holy of Holies, the place where we are known and where we know the Trinity and one another. 

There are unfathomable treasures in the Cross, for in the Cross we know Jesus; we walk with Him and talk with Him and come home to our Father.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). 

“And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23). 

Let us enter into the treasures of the Cross and allow those treasures to enter into us…in Christ, always in Christ.