The Centrality of the Cross

 

 

I think this is a phrase we usually hear about “keeping the gospel central”. But what does it actually mean? It becomes more complicated because our modern world offers a plethora of frameworks and methods of dissecting and understanding the world around us.

The two that we seem to see the most of is fundamentalism and progressivism. While they initially seemed opposite of one another, ironically, they are the opposite sides of the same coin. Both ideologies seek to make the answers for life a two-dimensional world where there is a canned answer for everything. One side says “obey everything”, the other side says “tear down everything”. I know that the reality is more nuanced, but that tends to be the basics. Both want to uphold an unrealistic reality that fulfills the clinical need for certainty and making everything black and white. The other aspect is that fear is often the primary motivator to keep people in line. The consequence is either being “damned to hell, or missing God’s best”, and on the other side is being cancelled, or called something like a racist, colonizer or the plethora of other progressive slurs used to keep people in line.

What are we to do? Neither side really answers the need for direction and an answer to the problems we face.

This is where the centrality of the cross comes in. The growing divides that we see can only be answered and bridged through Christ and His atoning work. This is not to say we can simply say “Jesus has it handled” as the way to deal with problems. Being a follower of Christ means we do the work, and walk the walk. What it does mean is “He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” (Col 2:14 NLT).

Now that we are new and alive in Christ, the sin we were held to is now the past. Instead of being held in fear or not qualifying, or not being inclusive enough, we are to love as Christ does for us. How do we know we love Christ? By loving those who love us, and even more importantly those who hate us. That is what the gospel does to transform us. It enables us to love those we could never want to love, because Christ loved them first.

This can get messy. But that’s kind of the point. What loving others looks like will not always fit into the neat boxes of fundamentalism, and it will still speak the truth of sin which is contrary to progressivism. The way of Christ is the middle way that may seem complicated to our human understanding. But what it does confounds our ways of thinking, and through the Holy Spirit, passes the defenses we put up and can open even the most hardened heart to their need for new life in Jesus.

If the gospel that we preach does not make us love like Jesus, then its not really the Gospel. Love and truth go hand in hand, and if separated from one another is actually lost. Focusing only on truth makes you abrasive, legalistic and frankly kind of a jerk. Only focusing on love loses the salt of distinction we are to have, not really believing anything and leads us to not really loving people because they would still be found in the sin Christ came to forgive them from.

But it is at the cross that truth and love and complete. And that is the tension that we as Christ’s followers have to walk in. That can only be done through the help of the Holy Spirit. It is hard, and I certainly don’t do it perfectly. But it is a journey worth taking to see our broken and hurting world transformed by the truth of love that is found in the centrality of the cross.