_THE POWER OF THE CROSS_
JOHN x. 11-18.
"I lay down my life." In that supreme sacrifice all other sacrifices turn
pale. In the power of that sacrifice the blackest guilt finds forgiveness.
Its energies seek out the ruined and desolate life with glorious offer of
renewal. When the Lord laid down His life the entire race found a new
beginning. Our hope is born at the Cross. It is there that "the burden of
our sin rolls away." In His night we find daybreak. When He said, "It is
finished," our soul could sing, "Life is begun."
And so pilgrims gather at the Cross. Songs are heard there, the "sweetest
ever sung by mortal tongues." And the power of the Cross never wanes. Its
glorious grace reaches the soul to-day as in the earliest days. It
inspires the despairing heart. It transforms the mind. It remakes the
tissues of the will. There is no shattered power that the power of the
Cross cannot restore. "We are complete in Him."
"In the Cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime."