An Unpopular Conversation Piece

7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! ~Galatians 5:7-12, ESV

Discourse about the Cross isn’t in overabundance these days, if you haven’t noticed. A shiny smooth cross might make a fine decoration dangling around our necks, but the jagged edged Cross the Son of God suffered and died on doesn’t make for a very good conversation piece I have found. We like to talk about current news and the events that have shaped history, but will avoid the Cross like the plague (even though the Crucifixion is the one event that overshadows all of history and gives it definition). It is only within the exclusivity of the Cross plus nothing which speaks to both man's most desperate predicament and his most glorious hope.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain. ~"The Old Rugged Cross", by George Bennard, 1913

Those who talk about or (close your ears) preach the Cross too much, tend to suffer for it (just ask the apostles about being persecuted and beaten and eventually martyred on behalf of such). So, instead of the old rugged Cross and its undeniable display of eternal love, we tolerate cross-less nonsense all the more. Luther wrote, There is not a word in the Bible which is extra cruem, which can be understood without reference to the cross. The question becomes then: Why is our speech , our writing, and our (I'm going to use the word again) preaching so devoid of it?

Maybe Paul gives us a clue as to why:

17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ~Romans 8:17-19