My Year in Photos

The Universal Symbol of Hope

You can't get away from it. It's everywhere. Not just in churches & cathedrals but in homes, in hospitals, in art, films and music videos. We see it around us all the time, at funerals, in the church yard, when remembering war heroes and when remembering our loved ones who have gone before us. And of course, we wear it too, around our necks, on our t-shirts or tattooed onto our skin, it's the symbol of the cross. What would some huge companies do like Starbucks or McDonalds give to own a symbol that countless millions of people acknowledge and recognize, and even wear?

I can think of smiley faces we put on our text and facebook pages and symbols of hearts when we think of love, but I don't think there is a symbol more powerful than the cross.  It is probably one of the few symbols known worldwide. It became a symbol of the Son of God in the 4th Century, once crucifixions were abolished as a form of punishment.  

Although it may draw us to think on death, it is also a symbol of hope. Hope can be scarce in today's world; is there anywhere we can find it?  The cross is a symbol of comfort, but the symbol alone does not give us hope, only the person who went to the cross carries the hope we long for, Jesus Christ. At Easter we can remember that Jesus promises the hope for a better way of life and a better future to come.  So next time you look at a cross, don't forget to think about the man who died there. John 3 v 16 For God so LOVED the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes on Him, will not die but live forever'. The power and significance of the cross was ultimately God's signature of love to the world.

I will leave you with words from C S Lewis about Jesus Christ. "But supposing God became a man, suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God's nature in one person; then that person could help us. He could surrender His will and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God.  But we cannot share God's dying unless God dies; and he cannot die except by being a man. That is the sense in which He pays our debt and suffers for us".  When Jesus suffered, God himself shared in our own sufferings, he shared with us in sorrow and in dying. Therefore, He is a God who understands us and knows what it is to be human, knows what it is to suffer and knows what it is to die.  He is a God who can share with us in our sufferings.

EASTER BIBLE READINGS:

John 11 v 25 - Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live."

1 Peter 3:18 - For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

John 10, 17-18 - Jesus said, "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

1 Peter 2, 24 - He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; "by his wounds you have been healed."