If someone asked you, "What does the cross mean to you," what would you say? Would you know how to respond? Would you be caught off guard? That's the mindset I was in when someone asked me that very question. It should be a simple question to ask a Christian, right? And yet I found myself struggling. I knew the cross symbolized sacrifice. At least, that's what it meant to Jesus. He sacrificed his life for us. But it also means our daily sacrifice every day because of what Jesus did for us. And it took a special moment in my life to open my eyes to the meaning of Matthew 16: 24-26:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"
It was a beautiful spring day. The sky was cloudless and the temperature was warm. I decided to take the dog out for a walk in the woods. Before I reached the edge of the woods, I remember saying a prayer. I said, "God, please show me something beautiful that you created." So I spent the next hour wandering and taking in all my surroundings. Until, out of nowhere, I happen to look down and saw a tiny, white flower. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny! Smaller than my fingernail. It sat there, bending in the breeze. I could not take my eyes off of it. I became puzzled. This was not exactly what I had in mind. "God, I asked for something beautiful! Out of all the incredible things that exist in creation, you send me this?" This little flower did not look beautiful to me. As I walked home, I tried to wrap my brain around why God would create something like this? What does it have to offer the world?
When I got home, I did some research. And what I found out, is this little flower is called a bluet. You'll mostly find them in dark, shaded places. Seemed pretty normal to me. But as I kept on reading, I found out something very significant about this flower. It self-seeds itself. Meaning, it does not need human hands to physically plant it. What starts as a single seed becomes multiple seeds. The seeds are dispersed by the wind, rain, and birds picking them up and scattering them across the land. They are being planted naturally. And not only naturally, but abundantly. So the one seed that came from a dark, shaded place produces more and more, until finally a blanket of these flowers can be seen from very far away. And they all stand together.
It was in that moment I realized why God showed me this little flower. This is who we are! As Christians, we are called to change the world because that's what Jesus did. He went into those dark, shaded places and reached out to so many people who were hopeless. And the same questions I asked about this little flower could have been the same questions the people asked about themselves.
"Why am I here?"
"I'm so little and insignificant. What could I possibly have to offer the world?"
"Why did God create me? I'm nothing."
But Jesus went into those dark, shaded places and touched their lives in so many ways. He , rose people from the dead, forgave their sins, took away their sicknesses, taught them about salvation, and brought them hope. Why? Because regardless of how they saw themselves, in God's eyes, they were worth it. We are worth it.
We are worth dying for. Even a torturous, shameful, criminals death that Jesus endured. He went through it to bring hope into the lives of sinners. People who are suffering. People who are just barely holding onto life. Through Jesus' death, which was the ultimate sacrifice, he overcame the world! And he continues to change people's lives. The cross means so much more than pain and death. We are given a second chance. It should bring us great joy! So great that we should't keep it to ourselves. As Christians, we have the privileged of going out into those dark, shaded places in the world and reach out to the hopeless. We have stories to share. Stories of pain just like theirs. But our stories end with victory! And so can theirs.
A chain reaction starts to take place. The more people we reach out to and share the good news with, the more lives are being changed. And from there, those Christians are sharing their stories with even more people. We are self-seeding, and we are doing it abundantly. That's what the cross means to me. Saving the world one seed at a time. The next time you reflect on the cross, think about who you were when you were in that dark, shaded place. And think about what it took for Jesus to bring you out of that darkness and into the light.
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