The Taste of Blessing: How many crosses?

 August 24 2025

Galatians 5:13-6:5

         Many years ago, Christians in our area where we live watched an amazing phenomenon happen. It all began when a little church in Sugarcreek welcomed a new pastor, Dwight Mason. Within a few years, the church began to grow by leaps and bounds.It became clear that this pastor had an audacious dream to build a mega-sized church called NewPointe which now has five campuses. The Dover campus is right up the road from where we live so of course we have checked it out. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this church is that, right from the beginning, there is no cross anywhere to be seen throughout the worship area. How very different from all of the other church sanctuaries I have worshipped in which have as their one common element that there is always a cross displayed somewhere. Whatever the reason for NewPointe has for not displaying a cross,in doing so they have called us to ask the question, just how many crosses does a sanctuary need?  This huge church says that none are necessary, while the majority of churches have decided that one cross prominently displayed is sufficient yet I wonder, is one cross really enough?

         The reason I want us to think about just how many crosses does one church really need, is that the answer as to how many crosses is enough is surprisingly found as we conclude this series of messages, called, “the Taste of Blessing”. This series of messages discovered the true depth of meaning found in that simple string of words that Paul calls, “the fruit of the Spirit”. You know it as, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and an inner strength. As I began this series of messages, God led me to see the connection between the fruit of the Spirit and what are called the Beatitudes, the core teachings of Jesus. The similarity between these two seemingly very different teachings is this idea of blessing. The book of Galatians, where the fruit of the Spirit is found, is concerned primarily with the way we are blessed through Jesus. The core teachings of Jesus likewise lay out the ways that the Holy Spirit blesses us. So both of these teachings are indeed very alike and they do tend to shine a light on each other.

         So, as a wrap up, just what have we learned in the last nine weeks? Well, I hope it has become obvious that the fruit of the Spirit is an apt description for the life of Jesus. Jesus is both the the man and the God we know as being loving, and joyful, peaceful and patient. Jesus is the man and the God we know as being kind, overflowing with goodness, one who is exceedingly faithful and gentle with us. So, if this description does not describe the God you believe in, then you may need a new God. You see, as our scripture for today points out, God and his kingdom is found wherever life is described by the words found in the fruit of the Spirit. We can say God has indeed blessed us so now we can taste and see the goodness of God. Through the Holy Spirit we now have this very goodness living in us, right alongside the rest of those qualities we call the fruit of the Spirit. This fruit is the very life of Jesus which is now able to be born in us. Jesus calls us to be blessed so that this life, this light that has come into the world, might shine through us to scatter the darkness of this world. 

         The fruit of the Spirit then does indeed describe the God we discover in the face of Jesus. If we claim Jesus as our Lord and God then we must also be people who are known by these same qualities. Now, the fruit of the Spirit rightly understood is how others view our life. This tells us if we want to be honest about our life then we have to ask others, just how are we doing displaying this love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and an inner strength we claim to have. You see, this is the life God expects for us demonstrate to the world because just such a life proclaims that the curse has indeed been destroyed through the cross. Either the cross changed everything or the cross changed nothing, there are no other possibilities. This is a good reason for having at least one cross in every church. The cross is our good news because this symbol assures us that we do not have to grit our teeth, and pull ourselves together and do our best to live just such a life that God expects. No, as the late author, Larry Crabb always said, “The pressures off”. You see, this life cannot be ours through our work; this life can only come through the work of the Spirit. You see, Jesus upon the cross has indeed done everything necessary so that the Holy Spirit might bless us. Now we have the certainty that through the Spirit the life of Jesus can now live in us. 

         So now we know who our God is; he is the God seen in the face of Jesus. We also know that who God expects us to be is a person who has a life that is loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, you know, people who seem to have an inner strength. If you want to be sure if this life is in you just ask someone, they’ll let you know. If you find that your life needs some work then just ask the Spirit to get busy. Now just so there is no confusion how we go about working with the Holy Spirit we have the fruit of the Spirit and the teachings on blessings, to guide us. A good place to begin to see how this might be possible is for us to stand back and look at these teachings on blessings. I believe that you will become aware that they are a highlight reel for the ministry of Jesus. In the first three blessings, we find Jesus proclaiming the gospel message. Jesus said that the kingdom is near, ready to be received in open hands, can’t you hear this in the first blessing? Jesus told the people that they had to repent, to turn from their dead ways of living to find life with the God of all comfort, well paraphrased in the second blessing. Jesus called the orphans, those lost sheep, and prodigals to come home to the Father, allowing his life to shape their life for this is the way of eternal life. This is the very essence of the third blessing. So in these first three blessings it is easy to sense the proclaiming of the good news of Jesus.

         In the next set of two blessings, we now find ourselves seated at the table eating the last supper with Jesus and his disciples. There around the table, Jesus instructed his disciples to do certain actions to remember Jesus and the way he lived his life. Jesus said to remember in the giving of the bread that it is God who has taken ahold of us, compelling us to give ourselves over to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit.  As Jesus teaches us, the way of the Spirit is the only way for us to remain free while we patiently wait for his return. When the hunger and thirst for the world to be set right tempts us to turn to violence we remember how in Hebrews 9:14, Jesus was offered up to the Father without blemish through the eternal Spirit. So we too we allow the Spirit to offer us up to the Father keeping us free from being polluted by the world.

         Likewise, on that same night, Jesus took the cup and blessed it and he gave this cup to be his blood shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. There we see how the mercy of Jesus displayed the kindness of God causing those who receive such mercy to become merciful themselves. Jesus at the table called his disciples to remember his life, how his mercy had no bounds for whenever mercy was needed, mercy was given in abundance. Such mercy is seen as kindness which draws ever more people to become merciful, a mercy seen as a kindness which creates unity. So here in these two blessings, we do seem to find the point in he ministry of Jesus where he has given the bread as his body and the cup as his very blood.  

         Well, as we know, after the meal, Jesus goes to the garden to pray. No surprise then that prayer is the very subject of the sixth blessing, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” As Jesus teaches us, we come before our Father in secret, so here Jesus in the garden Jesus also comes before the face of his Father as he prays. In prayer is where our hearts are purified, at last in synch with our Heavenly Father. The intense laser-sharp point of light that is the goal of our purity is found in the prayer of Jesus, “ Father your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.” Only as Jesus yielded himself to the will of the Father was he then able to be faithful in offering himself upon the cross.

         So, we have followed Jesus through his proclaiming of the gospel, we have sat with him at the table and we have prayed with him in the garden. Now we come to the blessing which says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they are sons and daughters of God.” When we know of how Jesus made peace with us on the cross, how can we not see in this blessing Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary. There on that cross we witnessed an intense faithfulness of a Son to love his Father, even unto death. The cross is the result of the religious authorities hunting Jesus down because he dared to uphold the righteousness of God. This is the righteousness which demands that all people are equals before God. Therefore, righteousness could no longer be the means by which religious people could raise themselves up as being supposedly superior to others. So Jesus had to be silenced. Yet Jesus, even in his death, continued to proclaim his righteousness for all to hear. There on the cross, truly Jesus is glorified. Now that great river called the Holy Spirit,  the God who blesses, is given to all. This blessing could only be ours as Jesus endured the curse of being hunted down, just as his teaching on blessings said would happen. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and hunt you down and utter all kinds of evil against you,… rejoice and be glad for so they persecuted the prophets before.” The prophets were hunted down because they had the audacity to announce to everyone, even the kings of Israel, that all were subjects of a yet greater king, and they had better not forget this fact. You see, those in the world who govern others do so, as Jesus teaches us in the eighth chapter of Mark, by lording over those they govern. This is not the way of God. No, Jesus taught that to be great one must be the servant of all. Jesus at the cross, served the whole world through the offering of his life, the greatest act of love, making him the greatest of all, indeed our king. Jesus, our king, there upon the cross, ruled over the world with an inner strength that the world simply can not fathom.

         So, yes, we do see the entire outline of the life of Jesus here in these nine blessings yet I believe, there is still more. You see, I believe the blessings Jesus taught are to be how our church life together is structured. As is rather obvious, our worship service is centered around the Word and the Table. With this in mind, we begin with the first three blessings and we discover the framework for the blessing of the Word, the gospel of Jesus. The Word of God is about the God who is king whose one desire is to see all the families on earth be blessed by the one we know as the Holy Spirit, the God who blesses. This story tells us that God desires to give his entire kingdom to those willing to come as poor beggars with their hands stretched out. This is how everyone begins their journey to know the God who has always known them. Then, as the story continues, we hear Jesus calling us to repent, to change our minds dominated by the fear of death and instead to come and follow the voice who calls us into life. The Word, we find, is our loving Father calling us to come home, to be his children who pattern their life after the very life of eternity. Through the hearing of the Word, the Spirit is found to be the one who convinces us to believe, the one who speaks to us words of life, the one who assures us that we have, most certainly, been adopted into the family of God. The church marks this birth of the Spirit by the act of baptism just as Jesus teaches us to do.

         Yet Jesus also commands us, his people, to return again and again to his table. This sacred act called communion is a grace given to us so that we have the power to withstand our temptation to use violence to ease our hunger for a better world. We must remember again and again that the life of Jesus is free only when the Spirit of freedom takes ahold of us. The Spirit is the one who gives us, just as the bread is given. In this moment, we remember we are to be given as an offering to bring the life to the world, just as Jesus spoke about his life. There at the table we also remember, as we drink from the cup, that we are given in freedom to offer mercy to others, a kindness that unifies us as one people. So, through the Spirit of unity, we pray as one church, that the will of our Father be done. In secret, we seek our Father’s face to be purified in our desires so that his will be lived out here on earth just as it is being lived out right now in heaven.

         At last, then, we come in our order of worship to the last three of the blessings that Jesus teaches us about. The first six blessings seem to be a right fit with the way we worship as followers of Jesus. So what might these last three blessings have to do with our worship? Well, Paul, I believe, has the right answer when, at the beginning of the twelfth chapter of Romans he writes, “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters in Christ, by the mercies of God, present your life as a living offering, holy and acceptable to God for this is your logical worship.” Translators seem to not understand that to Paul this offering of ourselves is simply a logical action. You see, Paul knew that it is simply absurd to forsake the freedom found at the table and then go back to live as a slave of this world. No, the only logical choice is to do what Jesus teaches us in the last three lessons about being blessed. Now, when we were blessed by the word and we became born of the Spirit, we are marked this by the act of baptism. Then we mark the giving of ourselves as a free act of mercy when we partake of Holy Communion as Jesus also commands us to do. So we are right to wonder, just what is the action which marks the next three blessing? The answer is the act which Jesus calls all who follow him to do, the carrying of our own cross. Carrying our cross is an act of worship which is done when we scatter and go out to live life. The teaching about being blessed tells us that this carrying of our cross is about doing the work of peacemaking, bringing people to the foot of the cross, where we are all equals in need of peace. In this way we demonstrate our faithfulness as sons and daughters of the Father. As we carry our cross we must endure the reaction of the religious and those who govern us, because they refuse to accept the equality of the cross. Yet our hope is that the goodness shown to others will bring just one more person to give glory to our Father. This is when our hearing the Word, and our eating and drinking at the table and our carrying the cross will have reached its acceptable goal, that moment when, through us, just one more person comes to glorify our Father. So perhaps the answer to just how many crosses should a church building display is two. There should, I believe, be a cross we focus on as we worship as the church gathered because the cross has changed everything. But when we leave, I believe that perhaps there should be also be a cross displayed as we go forth into the world. We need to remember that Jesus teaches us that our worship continues when we go out those doors for he commands us to take up our cross and follow him. You see, if we fail to carry our cross then pray tell, just how will the world ever see our faithfulness, our gentleness and the inner strength of Christ who lives in us? Amen!