“It’s About The Cross”

It’s not just about the manger
where the Baby lay.
It’s not all about the angels
who sang for Him that day.

It’s not just about the shepherds
or the bright and shining star.
It’s not about the wise men
who traveled from afar.

chorus

It’s about the cross;
it’s about my sin.
It’s about how Jesus came
to be born once
so that we could be born again.

It’s about the stone
that was rolled away,
so that you and I
could have real life someday.

–Go Fish
“Christmas With A Capital C” CD

I’m often asked why I walk the cross throughout the winter months and especially during December, the month our Lord and Savior’s traditional blessed nativity and birthday are celebrated.

Don’t get me wrong. My family and I celebrate the traditional birthday of Jesus Christ. We put up the outside Christmas lights, telling all who see them that Jesus is the light of the world. We buy and decorate a Christmas tree, which is a symbol showing Jesus as the eternal, everlasting tree of life.  We sing Christmas carols and hymns. And we attend Christmas musicals all month long.

OUR FRONT YARD DISPLAY INCLUDES THE CROSS

Grandson Simon and the cross walker adjusting the red lights on the family’s front yard Christmas Cross display.

My wife and I also put up a five foot cross adorned with red lights in our front yard for all to see. There is a reason for this, as well as to why I carry a 60-pound, 10-foot cross throughout the streets of the city we live in, as well as traveling to other California cities and cross-walking their residential streets and downtowns, too.

SIN, DEATH AND TRAGEDY DON’T TAKE HOLIDAYS

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s a time of great joy and happiness; a time of family gatherings and making new and pleasant memories; a time of smiling faces and warm hearts; and a time of cheerful greetings and expressions of awe and wonder on the faces of little children.

But for many individuals, this blessed Christmas season will be a time of mixed emotions. There will be renewed faith in God. But there will also be doubt. There will be gladness, but there will also be sadness. There will be laughter, but there will also be tears.

For many families, death will have visited months, weeks or even just days before the magic of Christmas arrives, unexpectantly and tragically snatching loved ones from our grip, from our sight, and from our lives.

WHERE IS THE PROMISE OF GOD’S PEACE?

For many individuals, this Christmas will be a time of seasonal sadness and holiday hurt. Families will continue to experience emotional, physical and spiritual rifts in relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children. Employers and employees will be at odds, to the point of jeopardizing family security and welfare in the coming new year.

For many, the promise of Christmas peace will seem empty because of families at war, husbands and wives at war and neighborhoods at war. Add to this loved ones fighting wars in foreign lands and Christmas can appear to be as unstable, shallow and empty as the other days of the year.

THE “PRINTS” OF PEACE

Jesus invites everyone to look at His nail scarred hands and receive the peace that only He can give.

In 1945 the head of the team of physicists that supervised the creation of the first atomic bomb appeared before a congressional committee and was asked by the chairman if there was any type of defense against this weapon of mass destruction.

“Certainly,” the esteemed physicist replied. “And that is…?” the congressman asked with a note of impatience in his voice. The nuclear scientist looked across the hushed, expectant audience and answered, “Peace.”

According to historians, only eight percent of the time since the beginning of recorded history has the world been entirely at peace. The war in Iraq has taught us that we can win a war, but winning the peace is extremely difficult if not impossible.

Inner peace is hard to win as well. Especially during Christmas, seasonal sadness and holiday hurt can take their toll on families and individuals.

God’s answer to this very real sorrow, pain, doubt and search for lasting peace is His Son, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. This Prince of Peace, this Wonderful One, this Counselor, this Mighty God, and this Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6-7) is the One who can give lasting peace, as well as restoration and recovery of that which has been lost.

The Lord’s remedy for and answer to seasonal sadness and holiday hurt is illustrated in the story of doubting Thomas and Jesus’ beckoning words to the skeptical believer:

“Look at the nail prints in My hands and feet!
(John 20:24-29)

Even though the pain is so real, the sorrow is so heavy, and the hurt is so deep, we, like doubting Thomas, can gaze intensely at the nail prints in Jesus’ hands and also declare: “My Lord and my God!”

During hushed, lingering moments of seasonal sadness and holiday hurt, where loved ones have died, families have split up, jobs have been lost, and incurable diseases have been diagnosed, humanity’s collective question to God is: “Is there any type of defense against sin’s impartial weapon of mass destruction which also hits hard at Christmas?” And God’s gentle and reassuring answer will always be: “Certainly! MY PEACE!”

THIS IS WHY I CARRY THE CROSS AT CHRISTMAS

Walking the cross on snowy, rainy, foggy and cold wintry days…because sorrow, tragedy, pain and hurt don’t take the day off due to inclement weather.

The Christmas cross is a spiritual magnet. It represents God’s peace with mankind because of the Savior’s atoning death on the cross for our sins and in our stead (our place). As  I walk the cross throughout the residential streets and downtowns of  our cities, people coming running out from their homes, their businesses, their moments of sorrow and their season of sorrow. They reach out and tenderly touch the cross. They take off their hats as a sign of respect. They bow down before the cross. They kiss the cross. They weep and cry.

And, more than any other spoken words, both old and young alike approach the cross with tears in their eyes and heavy weights on their hearts and utter the most common words of need and desperation that can be spoken in times of great sorrow, hopelessness and desperation:

“I needed to see the cross today.”

This is why I also walk the cross during the winter months and especially on Christmas day.