You know . . . professional athletes aren’t the only ones who feel a burst of adrenaline before the race or game starts. Pastors can feel the same thing. This was what I was feeling before that Sunday evening service. My heart was full and I wanted to share some things. A lot of things.
That night, as people entered the church, I gave a gift to every single person who entered the sanctuary doors and sat down in a pew.
We had bought the church building after its founding congregation had dwindled down and then decided to change locations. They had gone to something more modern with a gym serving as the place of worship. We’d gotten lucky, to be honest. And we continued to be blessed by all those who came and sat in those traditional seats. Sometimes I wonder how many people under the age of twenty even know what the word pew means. At least a few, thanks to Good Shepherd Church.
I watched the congregation file in as always, greeting them in the foyer by the two doors that led into the sanctuary. The Newtons were among the first to arrive that evening. I had asked how they were doing, and especially how they were feeling. They were doing well. Yet as I glanced through the glass windows that looked into the sanctuary, I could see them sit down in the familiar row, and then noticed Teri putting the cross I’d handed her in the seat next to her.
Bobby and Elena Wilson arrived without their boys, telling me that Uncle Carlos was taking care of them. Bobby didn’t appear to be so confident about that, but Elena had seemed excited for her brother to be back. I waited until it seemed like almost everybody was here. There might have been a hundred people total, and stragglers would arrive all throughout the service. Happened every time, and I always welcomed them.
The music team opened up with a few songs. There was a guitarist and a drummer and a couple of singers, and they poured their hearts into the contemporary songs they sung. We liked to switch things up, doing traditional one night and the opposite the next. I loved the variety. And some—most—of our members liked it, too.
I know you can’t please everybody.
I know I was nervous singing and watching the band playing on the stage in front of the backdrop of the large wooden cross. Normally I’d follow up with a greeting and ask everybody to shake the hands of those nearby. But on this night, I decided to do something different.
I made my way up the steps and then walked over to the cross. On the floor next to it was a paint can. I picked up the large sponge and plunged it into the liquid, then I lifted it above my head onto one of the arms of the cross.
The red swath dripped as I brushed it into the place they would have nailed a prisoner’s hand to the cross. I could hear the gasps and the hushed murmur behind me. I didn’t look back, but instead dipped the sponge again and scraped the other side of the cross with a crimson stain.
I turned around and then walked to the front of the stage, the cordless microphone on my ear turned on. I looked at everybody not as members of a church but as friends and family that I desperately wanted to talk to on this night.
“Good evening. I’m glad to see all of you this evening.”
I didn’t spend long on the greeting. I didn’t give any announcements. I didn’t even mention the cross that each of them had been given. I would in due time.
“I’m going to ask you a question that was asked of me late last night,” I began. “It’s a simple question, but for some reason it affected me so deeply, so profoundly, I wanted to share it with you.”
I paused for a moment, looking at different faces that all stared up at me. Young, vibrant faces; weathered souls; different colors and shapes and outlooks. Everybody so different, yet all wanting the same sort of thing in life.
Hope.
“The question I was asked was: ‘Do you believe in the cross of Christ?’ ”
I waited to let them consider it. Then I casually gave them a shrug.
“That should be easy enough to answer, right? Of course I do. And yet, as I thought about this late last night, this question haunted me.”
Turning and facing the cross again, I slathered more red paint at the top of the cross where the crown of thorns would have been. Then below, at the foot of the cross. Then I dipped the sponge and smeared the stain at the place where the spear would have pierced his side.
When I turned again, I could see Grace in the front row wondering what I was doing and where this was all headed.
Good. I’ve got their attention. Just like he had mine last night.
“What does it mean to believe?” I asked them. “I remember hearing once that true belief is an action. So if we believe that Christ died for us, it should bring us not just to our knees, but to our feet.”
Again I could see the big black guy coming in my direction carrying that big old cross. He was certainly using his feet and his arms and his muscles and getting out there.
I pointed at the cross behind me.
“The cross is a gift. The greatest gift of all. It’s forgiveness, redemption, new life. And it was paid for with blood. Yet, when most of us look at the cross, we want the blood gone. We’re ashamed of it. The blood that my sins—and yours—required as the price of our ransom.”
The sponge still in my hand, still dripping on the floor, I continued making sure they were all there with me. Watching and listening.
“ ‘But, Pastor,’ you might say. ‘Jesus is risen. The blood is gone. It’s just a memory now.’ But I tell you it’s as real today as it was on that first Good Friday. It’s as real as though it had just run, warm and red, from the veins of Your Savior, Jesus Christ.”
My words were growing stronger, louder. I hadn’t come there on this evening to condemn anybody. We were all condemned. But this symbol behind me and the color on it meant there was something beautiful we could do with that condemnation.
But we all needed to know. Needed to be reminded.
So I was there letting them know and trying to remind them.
Them and myself.