Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you.  We are now in the Lenten season—a time when we journey with Christ to the Cross, reflecting on our sin and on the great love of God that led Him to the Cross to die for our sin and to rise victorious over it.

In a devotional series I enjoy reading over the course of two years, there is a meditation on the Cross that has become one of my favorites. I keep it marked so I can return to it whenever I feel the need to reflect more deeply on the Cross. I’d like to share that reading with you today in our devotional time together. It comes from Andrew of Crete in the 8th century.

Let’s dive in:

“How great the cross, and what blessings it holds. He who possesses it possesses a treasure more noble and more precious than anything on earth, in fact and in name. It is indeed a treasure. For in it and through it and for it, all the riches of our salvation were stored away and restored to us.

If there had been no cross, Christ would not have been crucified. If there had been no cross, life would not have been nailed to the tree. If it had not been nailed there, the streams of everlasting life would not have welled from His side—blood and water, the cleansing of the world. The record of our sins would not have been canceled. We would not have gained freedom. We would not have enjoyed the tree of life. Paradise would not have been opened.

If there had been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot. The underworld would not have yielded up its spoils.

How great the cross, through which we have received a multitude of blessings, because beyond all reckoning the miracles and sufferings of Christ have been victorious.

On it, of His own will, He suffered unto death. On it He won His victory, wounding the devil, conquering death, and shattering the bars of the underworld. The cross has become the common salvation of the whole world.

The cross is called the glory of Christ and His exaltation. It is the chalice for which He longed, the consummation of His suffering on our behalf.

It is the glory of Christ. Listen to His words: ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him… Glorify Me, Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was made… Father, glorify Your name.’ And a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ By this He means the glory which Christ received on the cross.

The cross is also Christ’s exaltation. Listen again to His own words: ‘When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to Myself.’

You see, then, that the cross is the glory and the exaltation of Christ.”

Let us pray.

Heavenly Lord, thank You so much for the work You accomplished on the Cross—the work we so desperately needed and yet could never accomplish ourselves. Lord, in this Lenten season, as we reflect on our sin and what drove You to the Cross, help us also to look with joyful anticipation toward Easter and what it means: the victory we have through Your resurrection.

We thank You and praise You for Your glory and Your exaltation, revealed in the Cross and in the empty tomb. Praise and honor be Yours always, now and forever.

It is in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Have an amazing rest of your week. I look forward to worshiping with you this Sunday—worshiping our God, our Savior, Jesus the Christ.

God bless!