“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” – Matthew 16:24-25When we see the empty cross, we recognize that Christ’s purpose was perfected there, which means ours will also be perfected through suffering. In fact, the road to salvation is frequently fraught with trouble and even with danger, and it is a salvation-oriented suffering if it comes about as a result of obedience to and love for Christ.There has to be a promise, a hope, which will support us as we pick up our crosses and follow all the way to Calvary, to the suffering that awaits those who love the Lord. How can we do it otherwise? This suffering can look like the dramatic and terrifying types of torture faced by faithful believers around the world right now. Our suffering in Christ can look more like the grief of being barren, of losing a child to cancer, or of rejection by loved ones. One way or the other, we drag that heavy piece of wood through the sand, feeling crushed by travails that Satan hopes will bury us. Except, we know that Jesus Christ, though buried, destroyed death. He could not be held down. This is our hope.Like Christ, we do not stay down. We do not die a second time. Because we follow Christ, we rise from the grave. Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection. This is our hope, our promised inheritance. As Tim Keller put it, “Each time we obey God, it is like a ‘death.’ We die to our own will, and that hurts. But with the help of the Holy Spirit, such little deaths lead us to become more Christlike—a resurrection.”Without the resurrection, the empty cross, Billy Graham argued he would have given up preaching: what would the point have been? There is no hope if he has not risen. In the words of Tim Keller, “The world—and especially our modern Western culture—has no understanding of how suffering and weakness can bring blessing.” Death is the means by which we receive the blessing of eternal salvation through faith, but it is in the risen Christ alone that we can be sure of resurrection life. If Christ is dead, then so are we, eternally separated from God. And there is no cure for death if Jesus has not risen. An empty cross fills us with very real hope.Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStock/ricardoreitmeyerSources:https://faithgateway.com/blogs/christian-books/where-is-jesus#:~:text=The%20Empty%20Cross%20Is%20Full,cross%20is%20full%20of%20hope.https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/keller-hope/https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-sons-eternal-glory-understanding-jesus-in-hebrews-1/
Candice Lucey is a freelance writer from British Columbia, Canada, where she lives with her family. Find out more about her here.
