The Sweetness of the Cross

Church Planting Series, Part four

How many Ash Wednesdays have you experienced? What has that accumulated repentance worked in you? How have the dust and ashes formed you?

A wise professor said to me, “You can have one year of experience forty times, or you can have forty years of experience.”

Is this a “repeat” Ash Wednesday or are you being led deeper into the presence of Christ and under the shadow of His cross?

I heard Frank Wess play a couple of weeks ago. He’s a jazz flautist and saxophone player. But that description doesn’t do him justice. This 86-year-old musician hobbled onto stage with the help of a cane and a young escort. Mr. Wess steadied himself against a stool. Then he picked up his flute and melted the hearts of everyone in the room with smooth and stirring melodies and improvisation. He moved to the sax and reached inside our souls with sounds smoother and sweeter than grandma’s cake batter. His music—-his presence—-brimmed with the sweet and painful accumulation of what life this side of heaven brings.

Mr. Wess talked about his “buddy” Duke Ellington. Frank Wess had been there. And when he raised his hand to command the Jazz ensemble, the other director floated toward the wings of the stage so the man who had jazz running through his veins could teach the “kids” a thing or two about the soul of music.

You may not be 86-years-old, but is the sweetness of the cross of Christ getting into your circulatory system as you march ahead in life—and not simply appearing on your calendar?

St. Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Will the beginning of Lent for you be part of a soul-stirring score brimming with the sweet and painful gifts your Savior earned for you? And will your Gospel voice melt the economic downturned, hopeless feeling, life struggling hearts of everyone in the room?

I’m not talking about whipping up some feelings or manufacturing a load of emotions. I’m talking about the sweetness of the cross in your life. I’m talking about the real impact of Jesus in you over the long haul of years.

The most powerful factor in ministry, in church planting, and in personal witness is the sweetness of the cross of Jesus in you. If it’s all just a job, if you’re simply running through another program year, if you’re in it to build funding, forget about it.

But if no one can hold you back, if you’d hobble out there—pay or no pay, if nothing can stop your determination to bring the sweet melody of redemption to the people God has placed around you, then play on. And watch souls be changed.

“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).