Choices

It is pitch black as we drive the dark country highway, except for passing cars and sporadic street lamps. Occasionally we pass an old country church; I can’t see the name of the church, but the large cross let’s me know that it’s a church. At home, although much more brightly lit, stands a similar scene, but three crosses instead of a solitary cross.  I pause to think which is more representative of the church, a single cross or the three wooden crosses. Both have their place I decide, as if what I think about the subject really matters.

The single cross, that is the one the represents the Christian faith. I wear one around my neck. My home is decorated with them, each holding a separate sentimental value to my heart. But the single cross represents the price paid on Calvary by Christ. The blood shed for my sins, the redemptive restoration to God that only Christ could bring. It’s powerful. It’s humbling. It stands as a reminder of what I could never do, but what was done so freely and completely for me.

But then the three crosses, the cross that held our Lord, with a sinner on each side represent the choices made available at the cross and to each person going forward. The sinner’s cross represents a choice laid before each of us.

Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” 

But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”  Luke 23:39-42

Do we accept our Lord with a humble and repentant heart? Do we ask, Lord remember me? Or in pride do we reject the one dying for our sin? Do we mock and test with words showing we have little revelation of what He is truly doing on that cross in the middle?

I can stand at the foot of either the isolated cross or the three crosses and find revelation. Ultimately, the Christian walk is about what I chose to do with the gift given on the single cross, the one in the middle. But the Christian walk leads me to the base of each of the other two crosses at some point. I have to reconcile for myself the response to the choice given to the two thieves. We all face the choice. Will you humbly accept the gift? Or mock and reject His gift? The choice is yours.