Words from the Cross - The Horizontal Dimension

Of the many things we have mastered in church we have greatly failed in relationship.

We are "Experts" at marketing services and events. We are skilled in areas of music, industry and enterprise. We have successfully crossed our music over on secular airwaves. Corporations and government agencies will pour financial support into our buildings and missions. And multimillion dollar ministry can be erected on the charisma of a single person and present opportunity for branding and world wide prestige. Behind the pulpit people can master speaking awesome  messages yet fail the test of Relational  ministry.

In our review of the cross we can not over look the 2 dimensional figure presented before us. The vertical dimension manifested in the reconnection of God and man, can not be more important than but is equal to the horizontal dimension reconnecting man to his brother. When racial killing is done on the basis of being black, then the healing of the relational piece is missing. What has happened to the horizontal mission of the cross?

The absence of this essential ministry robs the Christian experience of its greatest life here on Earth. The fullness of life Jesus offers is completed in the relationships of incomplete people that have been redesigned according to the word of GOD.

Early church fathers took the idea of community and love very serious. In scripture consider the following. 

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. (1 John 3:14 KJV)

The way we know we've been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn't love is as good as dead. (1 John 3:14 MSG) 

 

 

Loveless people are dead people. 

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1, 2 KJV)

Loveless people are worthless people. 

From the cross Jesus establishes a principle we often over look. When He looks in the crowd, he sees 2 people that He loves. And sees that they are going to be wounded due to the connection they have with Him.  

A disciple. One willing to be close to his master at the cross  even if would cost his life. John being there speaks to the devotion John had for the master. For as the others where a far off, John stayed close. He now watches the one he loves get rip violently from his life. Leaving a void that only love could fill.

A mother. She after enduring the labor pains of child that was never meant for her enjoyment, watches Him die. Did she know He would be snatched from her like this? What pain she has to endure. She too has a void only love could fill.

Jesus sees the 2 needs and as The word speaks from the cross.......... "Mother behold your son, Son behold your mother." Remember .......The fullness of life Jesus offers is completed in the relationships of incomplete people that have been redesigned according to the word of GOD. In that moment Mary's void of a son is matched with John's void and through the word the voids resolve each other. This is the miracle of this word and the one we need to rediscover. The answer to my void is in you and at His word we can find fullness in relationship with each other.

 

Like puzzle pieces that look odd when they stand alone, we are deformed when follow the desire of isolation. But when we see our selves as one body, we will discover that joining together makes our lives complete and changes puzzles into masterpieces.