The Cross

 

The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.  (1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NIV)

Paul says we are to proclaim Jesus’s death until He returns.

Why?

Shouldn’t we be proclaiming His life?  Why would we want to focus on His death on the cross?

Because in the cross is the victory.

It’s good for us to remember that, and it’s good for us to remind the devil of that.  That’s why we proclaim it every time we take the Lord’s Supper.

We remember that when Moses led the Israelis through the desert, they began to complain.  Snakes came out and bit the people, they repented, and God gave the remedy: 

The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.  (Numbers 21:7-9 NIV)

God’s remedy to the deadly snakes was for Moses to lift up a bronze snake impaled on a pole, signifying that God had conquered the snakes. 

And it worked.  When people looked at this bronze snake impaled on a pole, they were healed. 

Many years later, Jesus compared the cross to that bronze snake on a pole:

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:14 NIV)

The Bible says that the devil would never have crucified Jesus if he had understood the divine plan. 

None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.  (1 Corinthians 2:8 NIV)

What was the plan? 

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.  (Colossians 2:15 NIV)

You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot.  With his own spear you pierced his head.  (Habakkuk 3:13,14 NIV)

What the enemy meant for evil, the Lord used for good.  Jesus took the cross, the weapon used against him, and used it right back at the devil.  At the cross, the devil was defeated. 

When we see pictures of the cross, we see what took place in the natural realm:  Jesus dying on the cross.

But something amazing was concurrently happening in the unseen spiritual realm:  the devil, that serpent of old, was being impaled on the cross, just as Moses had foretold with the image of the bronze snake on a pole.

As the devil found out, the cross was a double-edged sword.

And that’s why we proclaim the death of Jesus; the powerful, wonderful, victorious cross, until He returns.

 

May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands, to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, to carry out the sentence written against them- this is the glory of all his faithful people.  Praise the Lord.  (Psalm 149:6-9 NIV)

 

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com.  The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.