The Cross Isn’t Just for Easter

Did you know that the cross is not just for Easter?  I have found it to be a place I need to visit often. Its message is timely for every day of the year.

I spent Lent this year not journaling in my normal place through the pages of the four gospels. Instead, I found myself journaling through the pages of Habakkuk.

I thought it strange at first why I felt so led by God to visit these scriptures leading up to Resurrection Day. After all, Habakkuk is a book about sin and the consequences of sin and how it brought a nation to its knees. Can’t I just skip ahead to the feel-good hope message of Resurrection Sunday?

Honestly, I find Habbakuk to be a hard book to read. That part in Habakkuk 3:17-19 (CSB) gets me every time.  It reads,  “Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the flocks disappear from the pen and there are no herds in the stalls, yet I will celebrate in the Lord; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!” I can’t speak for you but if I am honest I can easily insert my question into that verse.  “Lord, could I truly be able to do that?”

Actually, this book is hard for any of us to read.  Here we find God’s people living in the harsh reality that sin brings bondage. Here they would begin a journey to live out 70 years of captivity in a pagan nation that didn’t honor God.

They would be stripped from their beloved homeland, security, and provision. As their heavy hearts hung their harps on the willows, they found that even a song would escape them in this strange land.

Habakkuk’s heart too was heavy.  He took his hard questions to God about the things his heart wrestled to understand.  Questions like, “Why would God allow His people to suffer such cruelty?” “Why would He inflict pain on those who called themselves His people and yet it would seem the godless would go free?”

I was mesmerized by the verse in Habakkuk 2:1 (CSB). It reads, “I will stand at my guard post and station myself on the lookout tower. I will watch to see what he will say to me and what I should reply about my complaint.” Then the beginning of Habakkuk 2:2 says, “The Lord answered me.” Isn’t that what we do during Lent, we position ourselves to hear from and experience God?

After spending time diving into scripture with Habakkuk, I realized maybe this book tucked away in the pages of the Old Testament wasn’t such a strange place to land leading up to Easter after all. Just maybe the meaning of the cross and the hope of Resurrection was tucked within its pages giving hope to these people who had wandered so far from home.

 

 

Ultimately, the cross is a place to lay down all our hard questions, wrestlings, and hurts.  A place where we can unload all our grief, pain, and sorrow.  A place we can lay out all our  “I don’t understand”  and “Why God” questions and all our “Help me Jesus” prayers.

That place like Habakkuk where we can position ourselves to hear from God too. A place where we are never turned away, overlooked or forgotten.  A place where we always find we have God’s utmost attention.

But that is not all we will find there in the shadow of this cruel-looking thing called the Cross. It is at this place we lay down the burden we often carry called sin and where we ultimately find forgiveness and hope to try again.  Every. Single. Time.

A place where we get to lay down because at that very spot it was where Jesus took it up. All of it. The so-called good, the bad, and the flat-out ugly. Took it all and nailed it to the exact spot you come seeking. Kneeling. The place He marked our sin debt paid in full.

A place we find forgiveness, freedom, and that glorious place to start over.

A place where our redemption, restoration, and transformation find their beginning.

A place where we find Grace, mercy, and salvation waiting for us.

Perhaps, it was this place called captivity for the children of Israel in Habakkuk’s day that appeared so strange and cruel to them but would ultimately serve to be a place of one of God’s greatest works. From there they would discover their way back to God.  A place much like the cross don’t you think? A place where without Jesus, sin would have us all living in captivity.

No, the cross is not just for Easter but a place we all must visit often. It is the message for every day of the year including this one.  All the ends, outs, and stuck in the middle.  Yes, all of it including all our heart-wrenching questions.

Sisters, we have a place to go.  Always.  For answers, hope, healing, provision, and a place where even the deepest longing of our hearts will be satisfied.

Sometimes all the things that bring us to question and wrestle will be the very things that will not just bring us to our knees but give us the clearest view of God’s love for us.

And at the foot of the Cross, the blood still flows and hope is still found because the cross wasn’t the end.  It was merely the place God’s great plan was just getting started.

Sweet friend, see you in the field,

Susan