CROSS AND CROWN
DR. JIM DIXON
MARCH 27, 1994
LUKE 9:23
“If you can’t bear the cross, then you can’t wear the crown.” That expression is very old, and yet the words are still true. If you can’t bear the cross, you can’t wear the crown. This morning, I want us to examine the cross and the crown, and we’ll begin with the crown.
The city of Cincinnati, Ohio is named after Cincinnatus, the Roman statesman, the Roman general who was really a farmer. The year was 458 B.C. when Roman authorities came to the farm of Cincinnatus. He was plowing the fields. They informed him that Rome was under siege by invading armies, and they asked him to come and lead the armies of Rome. He agreed to do this, and he left his farm. In less than two weeks’ time, he led the Roman armies to victory and he entered the city of Rome in triumph. And the people celebrated in the masses as well as the authorities wanted to make Cincinnatus king.
But he rejected the crown and he returned to his farm less than 16 days after he had left. Now, George Washington has been called the American Cincinnatus because during the War of Independence there was a significant segment of the revolutionary army that wanted to make Washington king. And they wrote him a letter expressing that desire. And it was on May 22nd, 1782, that Washington wrote them this letter back. He wrote this letter from Newberg. He said, “If you have any regard for your country, any concern for yourself or for your posterity, if you have any respect for me, banish these thoughts from your mind and never communicate a sentiment of like nature to anyone. Your most obedient servant, George Washington.”
He rejected the crown. Now on Palm Sunday, Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem and he too rejected the crown. The people wanted to make him king and he rejected the crown. And yet he did not deny his kingship. The people shouted, “Blessed is the king.” The Pharisees said, “Rabbi, rebuke the people.” And he said, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
He was king, but he was not yet ready to ascend an earthly throne, not yet ready to receive the crown. He first had to ascend a hill called Calvary. He first had to ascend a hill called Golgotha. He had first to ascend the cross. And as he appeared before Pilate, the question was posed, “Are you king?” And he said that his kingship was of a higher order, of a higher nature, than any earthly kingdom, any earthly king. And of course, they put a crown of thorns on his head and to the cross they nailed an inscription, “King of the Jews.” But it was all mockery. It was all derision. The Roman authorities, the Jewish authorities, did not understand his divine nature, his royalty. They did not understand his destiny. If they had, the Bible tells us they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Now, some of you may have heard of Czar Peter III. He received his coronation at the age of 67. In the year 1796, his coronation, historians tell us, lasted three weeks. They paraded him through the streets of St. Petersburg, from the convent of St. Alexander Nevsky to the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. And as priests chanted, he ascended the throne and he received the imperial crown with Sophia Augusta at his side, his bride and his princess. And according to historians, that coronation was one of the most magnificent in all of history. And yet it is famous not only for its splendor but also for the bizarre circumstances in which Czar Peter III was crowned czar, because at the moment of his coronation, Peter and his wife Sophia were both dead. In fact, Peter had been dead for 34 years.
You say, well, how can this be? Well, Czar Peter III only rule for a short time, and he was not a good ruler. He had managed to alienate the masses because he had given special privileges to the nobility. He had managed to alienate the church. He had managed to alienate Christians and clergy because he had usurped ecclesiastical authority. He’d even managed to alienate his wife, Sophia Augusta Frederica, to alienate her despite the fact that she loved him. But she could tolerate his massive mood swings, she could tolerate his gross immorality, but she could not tolerate his treason. You see, Czar Peter III was so enamored with Frederick the great of Prussia that he made concession after concession and he would have gladly given all of Russia to Prussia. So there was this great coup and Peter III was cast down and a week later he was assassinated.
Ultimately his wife, Sophia Augusta Frederica ascended the throne. And she took the name Catherine, and she of course became Catherine the Great. But Catherine—Sophia—and Peter had had a son, and their son’s name was Paul. Paul resented his mother and he wanted to honor the memory of his father. And so 34 years after his father’s death in the year 1796, when Catherine died, Paul had Peter’s body exhumed, had his father’s body brought out of the grave, and he had him crowned in splendor in the presence of his wife’s lifeless corpse. Historians tell us he’s the only king crowned 34 years after his death. But the truth is that throughout history there have been a number of rulers who were crowned after their death. All of these belated coronations were meaningless except one. You see, Jesus Christ is crowned after death.
He had to bear the cross before he could wear the crown. A post-postmortem coronation. And yet it is not meaningless. It is the most important reality in the world, the most important truth you can ever ponder. And the Bible is written to call you to belief in the royal reign of Jesus Christ. He bore the cross and he wears the crown. And we have a description in the Bible of his second coming in the book of Revelation. The second coming of Jesus Christ is described in apocalyptic language. And the Bible says, the Apostle John says, “I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat upon it was called faithful and true and righteousness. He judges and wages war. His eyes are like a flame of fire. On his head are many diadems, many crowns. And he has a name inscribed which no one knows but he himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood. And the name by which he is called is the Word of God. The armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, follow him. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. He shall tread the wine press of the wrath of the fury of God, the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh a name is inscribed: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
That’s the biblical description of the second coming of Christ. In apocalyptic language, he will come with the armies of heaven. He will come in power. He will come as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Bible says, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds. Every eye shall see him. Everyone who pierced him and all the nations of the earth will cry out on account of him.”
Jesus said, “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.” The Bible says, “Have this mind in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Although he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped, something to be held onto. But he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of man and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even unto death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee would bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” He bore the cross. He will wear the crown.
The incomprehensible promise of scripture is this: If you believe in him, if you receive him as Lord and Savior, he will share that crown with you. Indeed, 10 times in the New Testament it teaches us that the people of Christ will reign with Christ forever and ever. And this is not only taught in the New Testament, but in the messianic or prophetic passages of the Old Testament. The people of Christ are destined to reign and rule with him throughout the new heavens and the new earth. But if we would wear the crown, we must bear the cross. And so for a few moments, I would like us to focus on the cross of Jesus Christ.
It was in AD 70 that Titus and his Roman legions swept over the city of Jerusalem. They burned the city—they burned it to the ground, they destroyed the temple. Not one stone was left upon another in fulfillment of the prophecy of Christ. Of course, some of the zealots retreated to Masada, where they made their last stand, but it was futile. They died in a suicide pact. That destruction of the holy city of Jerusalem in 70 AD brought an end to the Jewish sacrificial system. The Day of Atonement would never be the same. You see, prior to 70 AD, on Yom Kippur, on the Day of Atonement the high priest went into the temple, went into the Holy of Holies. On this day alone, he went into the presence of God and he sprinkled the blood of sacrificial animals upon the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, seeking to atone for the sin of the people.
And then the high priest and the priesthood would take the blood of animals and place it on the scapegoat, and they would symbolically vest or impute the sin of the people upon the scapegoat. And they would send the scapegoat out into the wilderness, symbolically removing the sin of the people from them. But that day is gone. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is no longer the same. The sacrificial system is gone. It’s been gone since 70 AD. And yet it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because the Jewish Day of Atonement was simply a foreshadowing of the real Day of at Atonement, which took place on Good Friday of Easter week. Good Friday was the real Day of Atonement. That’s when Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. That’s when all who believed were saved by the blood of the lamb.
That’s when Jesus took his shed blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, of which the earthly temple was a pale shadow. And there he offered himself on behalf of the sin of the world. That’s when Jesus Christ became our scapegoat. That’s when the sin of the world was imputed or vested upon him. When we think of the cross, we think of the atonement, don’t we? I mean, when we think of the cross, we think of Christ’s expiation for our sins. But that’s not all we think of when we think of the cross. You see, through the Christian centuries, the cross has also symbolized consecration and commitment, and it has symbolized the suffering that is necessarily associated with that consecration and commitment. That is why Christians have often said, “If you can’t bear the cross, you can’t wear the crown.” All of us are called to bear the cross.
Jesus Christ said, “He who would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” That doesn’t mean we need to die for our sins. Christ did that once and for all. But there’s a sense in which if we really believe in Christ, there’s a cross to bear. There’s a cost. There’s a commitment that is required. The truth is that if we believe in Christ, we must die to ourself. We must die daily. We must take up our cross daily and we must follow him, and that’s not easy. It’s not easy to walk with Christ, not easy to follow Christ in a fallen world. The Apostle Paul said, “Run the race that is set before you.” The Apostle Paul said, “Do you not know that in a race all the athletes compete, but only one receives the crown? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do this to obtain a perishable crown, but we an imperishable. I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” The suffering of the Christian call and the Christian life is to run the race.
Now, the word that is used in the Hebrews passage and in the 1 Corinthians 9 passage, the word for “run” there is the Greek word “trecho.” Trecho. It’s the word from which we get our English word trek, as in Star Trek. But of course, our English word trek does not really mean the same thing as the Greek word trecho. If you’ve ever watched Star Trek, you know that trek there simply means to journey. And they journey throughout the stars. They star trek, they go wherever they want to go at their own. But that’s not what the Greek word trecho meant. It referred to a prescribed course. In fact, another form of trecho is the word from which we get the word track. When the Bible says run the race, he’s not telling you to run wherever you want to race, wherever you want to. It’s talking about a prescribed course. And that course is not easy. The path is not easy.
The way of Christ is not easy. You’ve all heard of the gauntlet. The word gauntlet really is two words, which comes from two different words. In one sense, the word gauntlet comes from a French word which means glove. You see, in the days of the knight and the days of chivalry, a knight would throw down the gauntlet, throw down his glove, when he wanted to challenge someone to battle. And if someone picked up the glove, if they picked up the gauntlet, they were accepting the challenge. That’s one meaning of the word gauntlet. But you see, the word gauntlet also comes from a Swedish word which means “to run the lane.” It means “to run the path.” And during the Thirty Years’ War in England, the British began to use gauntlet in this sense. And sometimes people were forced to run the gauntlet, to run a path, to run through a line of people. There were two lines of people on either side, and a person had to run down the middle and they had to try to survive the battering, the bruising, the beating that they would take. And they had to make it to the end in order to be victorious. Sometimes many were forced to run the gauntlet at once, each one following the other. Sometimes following Christ feels like that, doesn’t it? I mean, sometimes living for Christ in this world feels a little bit like you’re running the gauntlet.
There’s a cost to the Christian life if we’re faithful. Apostle Paul said, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Jesus said, “In the world, you will have tribulation. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.” I’m not sure how you feel. I know sometimes I just feel worn down. Do you ever feel worn down? In your Christian faith, aren’t there times when it does feel like a cross to bear? Sometimes when you wake up in the morning and you read the newspapers or when you watch television, or even when you go to a movie, don’t you sometimes feel like, “Wow, I’m always against the grain.” I mean, don’t you ever feel like everything you stand for, everything you believe, just seems antithetical to the way of the world? That’s a great struggle to live for Christ.
But if you desire sanctification, if you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you bear the cross. You know, six times in the Book of Acts, the Christian church, the community of Christ is called the Way. Have you noticed that as you go through the Book of Acts six different times the church of Christ, the community of Christ, is simply given the title the Way? And I’m sure this is at least in part because our Lord Jesus Christ in John chapter 14 said, “I am the way.” But you see, the way of Christ is not easy. We enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ when we are regenerated and born anew, and we receive him as Savior and Lord. And we long, if we love him, to know him more and more. And out of that love comes obedience.
But it’s not easy. The way of Christ is not easy. It was our Lord Jesus Christ himself, in Matthew 7 who said, “Enter by the narrow gate. Wide is the gate and easy is the path that leads to destruction. Narrow is the gate and hard is the way that leads to eternal life.” And then Jesus said, “In that day, many will say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not do this in your name? Did we not do mighty works in your name?’ And I will say, depart from me, workers of iniquity, I never knew you. He who hears my words and does them, I’ll tell you what he is like. He’s like a wise man who built his house up on the rock. And the rains fell, the flood came, the wind blew, and the house stood firm, for it was founded on the rock. But he who hears my words and does not do them, I’ll tell you what he is like. He’s like a fool built his house upon the sand. The rain fell, the floods came, the wind blew, and the house fell down, and great was the destruction of it.” And so Jesus Christ calls his people to faithfulness.
The way of Jesus is not easy. There is a cross to bear, and I think this cross that we bear as Christians is not simply the cross of sanctification as we seek holiness in a fallen world where Judeo-Christian values are eroding. But I think it is also the cross of ministry. I mean, do you ever tire of ministry? I must confess, sometimes I do. Do you ever just feel like your energy is depleted?
I mean, God has called each and every one of us to ministry. He’s called us to bear fruits. But do you ever feel like you don’t have the energy? And yet we’ve been called to bear the cross. And you know, there is joy in the Christian life, don’t get me wrong. There’s such joy. There is fulfillment found nowhere else, but there’s also a cross to bear.
As we close, I want to tell you a little story, a true story that took place in the state of Mississippi. A Red Cross doctor was teaching a lady’s group of the first Methodist church in a Mississippi city and teaching these ladies emergency medical assistance. And one of the women in the class, that very night as she went home, there was an accident in front of her home. And the next day as she came to the Red Cross class at her church, she reported that accident. She said it was horrible. There was blood and broken bones and bruised bodies. And the Red Cross doctor said, “Well, were you able to use what I taught you?” And she said, “Yes. I put my head between my legs, I breathed deeply, and I never once felt like I was gonna faint.”
Now, doesn’t that describe what the church of Jesus Christ is like at the end of the 20th century, as we approach the end of this millennium? Aren’t most Christians just trying to keep from fainting? Aren’t we just trying to keep from being grossed out? Aren’t we just trying to keep from fainting? And yet, that’s not enough. God’s called us to ministry. God’s called us to action. And so the call of Christ is upon his people. “He who would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. He who would save his life will lose it, but he would lose his life for my sake and for the gospel’s sake will surely find it.” If we bear the cross, we wear the crown. Let’s close with a word of prayer.