God is Great

“Allahu Akbar” “Allahu Akbar”

The saddest sight I saw this past week was that of Muslims in countries around Israel dancing in the streets, and crying “Allahu Akbar” (= “the Muslim god is great”) as Iran poured down bombs on a civilian population. Here were those in bondage to worshipping the kind of god whose greatness is measured in raining down bombs.

At the same time I was moved to thankfulness and peace in my heart to think that the greatness of the true God we worship is measured, not by bombs, but by the weakness of the cross:

“Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor. 1:22-25)

The older I get the more I genuinely rejoice in God’s power and wisdom in the cross – because in the cross God accomplished what bombs have no power to do: to secure the forgiveness of my sins and acceptance with God, my Father.

I look back on my life and am thankful for some things I have accomplished. But I am also aware that my accomplishments are overshadowed by where I have failed – whether as a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a pastor, just as an ordinary Christian.
Compared to knowing I am forgiven and accepted with God any of my past accomplishments seem so insignificant. What has God done more powerful, or more mysterious than that He has forgiven me!

“If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.” (Psa. 130:3-4)

Since the beginning of time we have sought greatness in all the wrong places:

Our first parents fell looking for greatness in Satan’s temptation: “You will be like God”, and sinned when they thought the forbidden fruit was “desirable to make one wise.” (Gen 3:5-6)

At Babel, the United Nations sought greatness in agreeing together to “build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; to make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” (Gen 11:4)

In the days of the Judges greatness was found in “everyone doing what was right in his own eyes.” (Jud. 21:25)

Even good King Hezekiah strayed when he thought to show off his greatness by showing the Babylonian envoys “the house of his treasures: the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his armory – all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.” (Isa. 39:2

In Jesus’ time His countrymen sought greatness in signs and wonders; the Greeks in their version of “wisdom” (contrast Prov. 9:10).

In Russia, Putin thinks greatness is to be achieved by restoring his version of former Russian glory by bombing Ukraine into oblivion.

In many countries around the world today deeply flawed leaders inspire a MAGA-type cult to look for “greatness” by following their lead in all the wrong places.

But the older I get, the more I rejoice that ultimately our comfort is found, not in worldly greatness, but in my relationship with God through Christ “who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal 2:20) I don’t pretend that that relationship is always strong with me; sometimes I feel like God is far away. But by the grace of God I begin to draw near again.

I pray that you who read these words will also find comfort in this.
Maybe you have accomplished much yourself in this world. What you accomplish in this life is significant; it is not to be despised.
But it is not everything, or even the main thing. As the famous author, Jack Higgins, found out: “I wish someone had told me that when you get to the top, there’s nothing there.”

In the end, our boast is all in the cross. “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Gal 6:14)
Paul wrote those words to the Galatians when they were being distracted from the cross. Though probably few, if any, of his readers had been present 1,000 kms away in Jerusalem, some 20 years before, when Jesus was crucified, Paul is able to couch his rebuke of them in these words:

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified…” (Gal. 3:1)

Jesus was publicly portrayed: He was “hung” upon the cross for all to see. As it says later in that chapter (v 13), citing Deut. 21:23, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’.)”

Jesus was not “hanged”. To be “hanged” is to die from having a rope around your neck, and the support knocked away from under your feet. (The ESV mistranslates this verse).
Jesus was “hung”, meaning His body was put on display for all to see, as a sign of God’s curse.
(This is similar to the gruesome practice of gibbetting where in both dying, and following death, the body of the one executed continues to be put on display as the ultimate humiliation and as a declaration that physical death alone was too good for the victim.)

That is what Jesus endured.
He “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil. 2:7-8)
God’s greatness is not in bombs. It is in the cross.

To Jews, I say: “Do not say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” (Luke 3:8)
To Arab Muslims, I say: “Do not say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’”
Only “if you are Christ’s, are you Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Gal 3:29)

To Australians, to all, I say: “Don’t look for greatness in your pedigree. Or in your achievements. True greatness is found in the forgiveness you discover in the cross.”

I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith,
And be closer drawn to Thee.

Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died;
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.
– Fanny Crosby