I was recently a “helper” at my church for a preschool graduation. As the small students processed in and out of the worship center, they passed by me at the door. I was standing beside a large, beautiful wooden cross that gets moved around our building as needed.
As one little boy passed by, he asked in an awed voice, pointing at the cross, “What’s that?”
I said, “It’s a cross,” even then, thinking about what I would say to him if he asked any more questions.
“We learned about that at my church,” he said.
“Oh, that’s good,” I returned.
Then I thought, what else should I say to him? What words can you say to a 4 year old to convey the meaning of the cross in a sentence or two? I thought I could say, “The cross is life.” Something simple, but something he might remember. But maybe, I thought, he knew that Jesus died on the cross, and it might be confusing for him. In the split second it took me to contemplate, the moment was gone as he followed the line back to the classroom.
I thought about that later, and how the cross does represent death, a horrible death, but it ultimately brought us life, and how so many paradoxes are central to Christianity:
Death leads to life
Be a servant to be great
Lose your life to find it
His strength is made perfect in our weakness
Give to receive
Become like a child to have great faith
Pray for your enemies; bless those that curse you
Faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain
In this Kingdom, the last will be first and the first last.
What was death to Christ meant life for us; his sacrifice, our gift.
Another seeming paradox is that the truth of the gospel is so profound that it compels the brightest minds of this age and ages past to contemplate it at the deepest levels, yet it is so simple that a child can understand and embrace it.
I hope that little boy learns more about the cross, and that one day he’ll find, like millions before him, the Cross Is Life.
May it be so.
Life By The Way 