Seventh Mark of the Church – The Holy Cross
July 14, 2024
The holy, Christian Church is outwardly known by the holy possession of the Holy Cross. It must endure all hardship and persecution, all kinds of temptation and evil (as the Lord’s Prayer says) from devil, world, and flesh; it must be inwardly sad, timid, terrified; outwardly poor, despised, sick, weak; thus it becomes like its head, Christ.
The reason must be only this, — that it holds fast to Christ and God’s Word and thus suffers for Christ’s sake, according to Matthew 5:10, “Blessed are they that endure persecution for my sake.”
They must be righteous, quiet, obedient, ready to serve their rulers and everyone else with body and wealth, doing no one any harm. But no people on earth must endure such bitter hatred. They must be worse than Jews, heathen, Turks; they must be called heretics, knaves, devils, accursed, 245 and the worst people in the world, to the point where they are “doing God service” who hang them, drown them, slay them, torture them, hunt them down, plague them to death, and where no one has pity on them, but gives them myrrh and gall to drink, when they thirst, — not because they are adulterers, murderers, thieves or scoundrels, but because they will to have Christ alone, and no other God. Where you see or hear this, there know that the holy Christian Church is, as He says, in Matthew 5:11, “Blessed are ye, when men curse you and reject your name as an evil, wicked thing for my sake. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great.”
What is the Cross or Sufferings of Christ?
First, suffering is not about complaining about others or condemning the acts of others in how they deal with, think about, or consider Christ.
Second, suffering is not about looking at the sufferings of Jesus day in and day out or trying to avoid suffering altogether by adorning oneself in images of Jesus or cross or emblems of holy people.
Third, suffering isn’t about weeping or lamenting over the suffering of Jesus on account of his innocence.
What is true suffering?
First, that as we look upon Christ and His passion, as we see the nail marks and the blood, our hearts are churned and terror stricken and our consciences sink on account of the sins and transgressions we daily commit, and the price God our Lord paid as a result. This is why we have the Commandments, and why the Commandments are the first part of the Small Catechism. For no one can call himself Christian that does not look at our Lord’s suffering and death and in the light of the commandments, see the horrific price He paid for our improprieties, our adulteries, our gossip and lies, our fruitless worship of the created things, or our hatred toward our brothers.
For the Christian, true suffering is first repentance and suffering the despair of our sins, the nails with which we ourselves pierced our Lord’s body.
You murdered Christ. You saw to it that He suffer and He face and unjust judgment. Your sins did this. This is the thunderbolt of God’s holy law, and you must face this reality whenever you look in the mirror – your law breaking led to Jesus’ death.
Jesus was pierced with three nails, but we should be pierced with them all. He was torn open by the thorns of a sinner’s crown, but we should be pierced a thousand times more.
Any person who is secure in his sin should run to the commandments and see how insecure he truly is. For as Paul writes, do not be so quick to stand lest you should fall flat on your face.
True suffering for the Christian is first and foremost learning to know your sin and your transgressions, coming to a sober and true knowledge of yourself and truly terrified that God could rightly strike you down and condemn you. For without this sobering truth and knowledge, the suffering of Christ is meaningless and His death is a wasted death.
But when you acknowledge your sin, when the knowledge and sober reality of your sin is spoken out, confessed to God, then what comes is not God’s judgment, but His mercy. He who must rightly judge and pour His wrath down upon the sons of men for their sins, He instead judges and pours His wrath down upon the Son of Man, the Lord and Savior Christ Jesus so that we who deserve it, do not receive it. We who deserve death, we instead receive life and salvation. And this is suffering to, for here our old nature suffers and fights and snarls against this Good News of mercy and salvation and seeks to find its own way past the cross and onward to better times.
And this wonderful and eternal gift of salvation and eternal life won for us in Christ, what does this do in our being and in our hearts? It changes us so that we suffer a new way. We suffer, not because of the evil and depravity of our old flesh and its futile grasping for dominance, but we suffer with our Lord, we suffer for doing good and loving and serving, for abiding in Christ. The world rises up against us just as it did our Lord and it seeks to destroy us. The devil’s threats and accusations increase 100 fold and we are faced each moment with these arrows and stones.
But because our Lord did not fall, we do not fall. Because He did not give in, we do not give in. Because He did not run, we do not run. But like Jesus our Lord, we cling to the holy cross, the throne of mercy, the cross of glory, and we trust that He will see us through our suffering, both from our sin, and from our Christlike service.
We run to Jesus and to His Word and Sacraments whenever we can, because in this we have life, we have strength, we have hope, and we have peace.
We pray to our heavenly Father that He continue to forgive, strengthen, renew, and protect us in this valley of the shadow of death. We fear not any evil, but we instead trust Jesus who defeated evil. We walk this wilderness walk from the sea to the promised land, abiding in His commandments, following where He leads, and fleeing from the temptation to build for ourselves golden calves, false idols, and human gods.
Dearly beloved, cast your fears and anxieties on Jesus. Cast your sins on Jesus, because he has promised to forgive, renew, and open heaven to you. You are a citizen of His kingdom and the walls of this holy city will never fall to the enemy.
Daily repent, daily confess your sins, and daily trust with all your heart in His forgiveness. Pray, learn, study, come to the holy Sacrament of His body and blood, look to your baptism, be not just a Christian when you have time, which will never help you in your suffering, but live as the Christian every day, as long as we have Today, and patiently wait and prepare for the life to come. Amen.