The message of the Christ-child come to be crucified, born to die, is suggestive of something tremendously important and too often missing from our non-conformist spirituality. We are rendered spiritually impotent for want of frequent and focused sitting at the foot of the cross and remembering the death of Christ.
We suffer a major weakness that requires a radical solution – revolutionary action – as revolutionary as the gospel itself. The problem touches every area of our Christian thinking: theology, ethics, apologetics and so on. In every department of our Christianity there is unnecessary inadequacy. We pride ourselves on our Reformed theology but it is cold and theoretical; we are careful to be separate from the world and holy but it turns out to be judgmental and Pharisaic; we want to demonstrate the reasonableness of the faith but our dialogue with the world seems to be little more than point-scoring argument that we feel we have to win, and that persuades no one.
Perhaps we forget that God has answered the great questions of theology, ethics and apologetics personally. He has come into the world. He has shown to men what He is like. He has shown men a perfect life and demonstrated what the truth is. He became vulnerable – a little baby in a very basic environment only clean enough for the animals – as sanitised as a farmyard. In adult life He had no place that he could properly call His home and He was often accused and subject to attacks – verbal and physical. His vulnerability reached the extreme when they nailed Him to the tree.
What an extraordinary privilege for Mary and the disciples to have been there. They were eye-witnesses of these things, of the Messiah and of God incarnate. That cannot be repeated. How can we know as Mary knew, as the disciples knew? Surely we are not to be left at a disadvantage? Actually, we do have the means and we have the presence of Christ by His Spirit. We have Scripture that testifies and Spirit to open our eyes. But how will we interpret Scripture? Through what spectacles will we read the word? There is a way of understanding that too often we neglect.
The great Teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ, has given to us along with his instruction a wonderful visual aid. That teaching aid is the Sacraments. Holy Baptism and the Holy Table repeatedly remind us to interpret Scripture Christo-centrically. The Apostle Paul determined to know nothing… but Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2.2). The Lord gave no direct commandment to read the Bible every day and to have regular times of prayer (although, no doubt He assumed such disciplines), but He did specifically command that we use the elements of bread and wine to remember Him often.
We cannot afford to be casual about the Sacrament. It helps us to keep our focus right. We should ever live under the shadow of the cross – we walk with Christ who was crucified and raised from the dead. We must do our theology, our ethics and our apologetics within a cruciform framework. What is God like? Look at the cross – that is what God is like. How should we live our lives? The Christian way is the way of the cross. And what is the truth? It is in the cross that we see the truth.
Take for example the greatest problem for theism – the existence evil. How can there be a God of love when there is so much sin and suffering in the world? Look at the cross! God has engaged with sin and suffering in an extraordinary and incomprehensible way. He knows from personal experience what hardship there is in life and what suffering. God was crucified.
When a vulnerable little Baby was put in a feeding trough for a bed He was being crucified; they crucified Him in adult life when they sought to catch Him out or stone Him; He was literally crucified at Calvary. Let us remember Him as we share regularly in bread and wine. Let us meditate on the broken body and shed blood. Let us be found at the foot of the cross learning all from our Lord and Saviour. The cross is the answer to everything. It is the gospel. It must be our centre, the soul of our Christianity.
