The story is told of a British soldier during World War I who fled the battlefield and deserted his regiment one dark night. He ended up hopelessly lost, though he thought he was headed for the coast where he could board a boat to England.
He came across what he thought was a signpost and climbed to the top of the pole. If he could read it he would know which direction to travel. At the top he struck a match and the flicker of light revealed an astonishing sight.
He found himself looking into the face of Jesus Christ. Instead of a signpost, he had climbed up a roadside crucifix. Clinging to that cross, the soldier remembered that Christ had died for him. Christ had endured suffering and never turned back. The next morning the soldier returned to the trenches.
Oswald Chambers wrote, “The Cross did not happen to Jesus: He came on purpose for it.” Chambers adds, “The whole meaning of the Incarnation is the Cross. The Cross is the center of time and of eternity.”
Christ changed the history of the world. History is His story. Since His birth everything in history is measured as B.C. (before Christ) or A.D. (Anno Domini—Latin for “in the year of our Lord”).
Theologian Andrew Murray has said, “As you gaze upon the cross, and long for conformity to him, be not weary or fearful because you cannot express in words what you seek. Ask him to plant the cross in your heart. Believe in him, the crucified and now living one, to dwell within you, and breathe his own mind there.”
The apostle Paul put it this way, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 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 for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).
While going through some personal spiritual troubles, George Bennard began to reflect on the meaning of the Cross and penned these words:
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame; and I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.”
Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke wrote, “The Cross of Christ is the heart of the Gospel.”
As another hymn writer put it this way:
“Kneel at the Cross,
Christ will meet you there.”