Whether we are ready or not the season of Lent is upon us.  Wednesday, February 6, marks the beginning of the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday. For a 40-day period, excluding Sundays, Christians around the world observe this period of spiritual renewal by giving fresh attention to core truths of Scripture. This would include such subjects as sin and repentance, the cross of Jesus Christ, obedience and discipleship, the nature of pilgrimage, and the sacraments.  Of course many other topics could be listed. Our focus will be given to the cross and the “cruciform” life, i.e. a life shaped by the cross. 

Personally this becomes a time for renewed focus on the centrality of the cross in our thinking and teaching. The message of the gospel cannot be understood without a proper perspective on the centrality of the cross for Jesus, for Paul and for the witness of Scripture. The cross is the place of atonement, the act of propitiation. It is this last term that has generated the most discussion in recent years.  The word refers to the act of bearing the wrath and covenant curse of God for sin and the broken law. It is a very personal term that indicates that Jesus has suffered the judgment of God against sin in our place and as our substitute.  Through his death the justice of God is satisfied in that his requirement that sin be punished is met.  In so doing, God’s holy wrath has been turned aside from us so that we become recipients of his mercy rather than his judgment.

The very fact of God’s wrath being poured out upon Jesus is considered by some critics to be either pagan or immoral. Some have portrayed the cross as a form of cosmic child abuse in that God punishes an innocent victim in the place of others.  Such criticism fails to understand the nature of the atonement and the relationship within the Trinity. It also betrays a hidden agenda in its formulation of the issues that is alien to the witness of Scripture.

 The cross is the means by which God has accomplished salvation for his people. And most of us would agree with such an assessment. But we fail to understand the ongoing significance of the cross if we see the event of the atonement as something we can move past in our spiritual growth.  Some speak of the cross as significant only in terms of what Christ accomplished in the past for our redemption. And they leave the impression that since our sins have been forgiven, we need to get on with the real work of the Christian life, that of being triumphal, happy, successful people who move from victory to victory in their experience.  Such thinking is at first very attractive to people as it seems to promise a life free from pain, discouragement, weakness and failure. This is why the “prosperity” movement is gains so many followers.  This perspective is of course contrary to the witness of Scripture. It substitutes what Martin Luther called a “theology of glory” for the “theology of the cross.” 

In our recent studies in the book of Galatians I have been reminded of how central the cross is not only in terms of accomplishing redemption but also in the formation of the spiritual life of the believer.  It is the means by which God transforms us. It is what is known as the “cruciform” life. We are formed by the cross of Jesus Christ. One of the central statements that Paul makes in the letter is found in an obscure passage that we often overlook: Galatians 4:12. Here Paul exhorts the church to “become like me.”  He writes this with tremendous passion as he seeks to avert spiritual danger in the lives of the Galatians. They were being led astray by false teachers who were seeking to bring them under the “Law” and requiring them to submit to submit to its regulations and requirements. But the gospel had set them free from the Law. To come under the authority of the Law as a means of spiritual formation and growth would actually make the cross of Christ of no effect. Paul calls them back to a life which he himself has modeled, a life centered in the cross as an ongoing experience.

 In the immediate context of Galatians 4:12, Paul speaks of his own weakness, his trials and his suffering out of which he ministered to the church the gospel of Christ. Earlier Paul had stated that he “had been crucified with Christ, and that he no longer lived but Christ lived in him. The life that he now lived in the body, he lived by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for hm.” Galatians 2:20   His suffering, his weakness, and his trials were evidence of “being crucified with Christ.”  The Christian life is not lived apart from these experiences, but is the evidence of a cruciform life.  For the Galatians to become like Paul would mean that they live out the life of the cross in their daily experience. It would of course bring them face to face with difficulties and even persecution.  But this would be the means by which Christ would be “formed in them.”  Galatians 4:19 

The season of Lent is a time in which we should redirect our lives as we discover anew the meaning of the cross of Christ. It is a time in which we give concentrated attention to the significance of the cross, not only as the instrument of redemption, but as the theme that continually informs us in our walk with Christ. We never move beyond the cross. In the words of the hymn “Abide With Me” we read in the last stanza this phrase:  “Hold thou the cross before my closing eyes…”   The cross is ever before us as we are formed in the likeness of Christ.  But this formation is not without suffering and hardship.  The cross always involves death.  Death to the world, death to self, death to sin. But this is the pathway to fullness of life.  It is not, however, something that we get beyond. We always live under the sign of the cross.

I trust that this period will be a time of spiritual renewal as learn what it means to live the cruciform life.  Though Lent and Easter come early this year, let us not neglect this means of discipline in our lives as we continually grow in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.