The sermon was solid, but my attention was caught by the cross behind the pulpit.

Resin?  About 5 feet tall?  With a base set on wheels for handy transport.

I have always wondered if Jesus had been hung in a noose or electrocuted would we have made the noose or the chair an easy talisman around our necks?

We cannot afford to think that the cross is a light and movable thing.

Jesus’ cross was massive, heavy, and blood-soaked because I am a sinner.  I have to run the horror straight back to me or I run the risk of not taking it personally.

If I don’t take it personally I don’t mourn.

If I don’t take it personally I lose my hunger for justice and my debt to grace.

We all search for love stories.  And many of us find them in the cheap trinkets of small gods and egoism–no love there at all.

But for a man to give his life for his friend?  

And to be that friend….