George F. MacLeod - "The Cross" (January 23, 1955)

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	(Catholic liturgical music)	0:04
-	Oh Lord our God.	1:15
	The giver of all good gifts	1:17
	accept these our offerings	1:21
	as the earnest of the dedication	1:25
	of our heart and grant that our gratitude to thy	1:28
	maybe as great as our need of thy mercy through	1:34
	Jesus Christ Our Lord.	1:39
	Amen.	1:43
-	Let us pray	2:15
	God of all love and of joy	2:24
	who by the glad sound of the gospel has called	2:27
	even us to have part in thy kingdom and glory	2:31
	shine powerfully into our hearts,	2:36
	we receive thee.	2:39
	That we may heartedly choose that good part,	2:41
	which shall not be taken away from us,	2:44
	but make our calling	2:48
	and election sure through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.	2:50
	Amen.	2:57
	(indistinct)	2:59
	In the passage,	3:03
	which we read	3:04
	from the Second Episode to the Corinthians,	3:05
	the fifth chapter and the 19 verse	3:07
	God was in Christ	3:12
	reconciling the world to himself,	3:13
	not counting against men that trespasses	3:17
	and giving to us	3:20
	the ministry of reconciliation.	3:22
	I sometimes think that the Bible,	3:26
	the whole Bible from Genesis to revelation might be compared	3:29
	with a quite vast mosaic on a wall.	3:34
	Of which obviously the center of the pattern	3:39
	would be the cross itself,	3:43
	but the raise of whose cross	3:46
	would go shimmering out	3:49
	to the furthest point of that vast mosaic.	3:51
	In those terms,	3:57
	I would suggest	3:59
	that it's the primary function of the pulpit	4:00
	to take here a cluster of the small mosaic stones,	4:04
	all their cluster of the small mosaic stones	4:09
	to take them,	4:14
	cleanse them, polish them, examine,	4:16
	relate them in their cluster	4:20
	and never fulfill	4:23
	the function of the pulpit	4:25
	until at the last cluster is put back	4:26
	into the Boston mosaic	4:31
	to relate the passage,	4:33
	draw the paddle ball,	4:35
	or the instance whether from Genesis	4:36
	or from the gospel Revelation	4:38
	never finished without relating	4:41
	that particular cluster in all the Marvel of the mystery	4:43
	to the central cross.	4:50
	But I believe there are occasions when we miss them.	4:53
	However, fantastic be the essay.	4:57
	We must dare to glimpse	5:00
	what it is that in essence,	5:02
	this central design says whose power	5:05
	and whose possibility radiates out,	5:09
	not only into every chapter of the Bible,	5:13
	but into every aspect of men's lives.	5:16
	And I know no passage in the New Testament,	5:20
	which would such marvelous economy of words	5:26
	describes the essence of the cross as does our text.	5:31
	God was in Christ,	5:39
	reconciling the world to himself,	5:40
	not counting against men that trespasses	5:45
	and giving to us the ministry of reconciliation.	5:50
	I suggest in the verse	5:56
	that is declared the catharsis of the cross	5:57
	in the second that is declared the comfort of the cross.	6:02
	And in the third is declared	6:06
	the consequence of the cross.	6:09
	God was in Christ	6:12
	reconciling the world to himself is the complete revelation,	6:13
	the complete renewal,	6:19
	the complete changeover	6:22
	in our understanding of God	6:24
	with its comfort,	6:27
	that our trespasses are not to be counted against us	6:29
	and with its consequence	6:33
	that we ought ourselves to become	6:35
	this ministry of reconciliation.	6:37
	It's these three thoughts	6:41
	that I wanted to expand this morning.	6:44
	And I want as an assistant	6:47
	and assistance in the expansion	6:49
	to remind you of three designs	6:52
	has it ever occurred to you,	6:56
	how the symbol of the cross itself	6:57
	conveys as you see it in your mind's eye	7:01
	the lessons of the cross?	7:06
	Let's take this first thought	7:09
	this two thoughts of the cross	7:12
	Sort, if you like the opposite of the cross,	7:15
	God was in Christ,	7:18
	reconciling the world to himself,	7:19
	by web design for this,	7:23
	I would remind you of the most dangerous word	7:25
	in the English language.	7:27
	The most dangerous word	7:30
	in the English language is the word, I.	7:32
	I don't mind what happens to other people.	7:37
	I'm going to get what I want.	7:40
	As soon as that becomes the primary word said in a family,	7:44
	as we all know that family is in a dangerous way.	7:48
	As soon as somebody in the team says,	7:54
	I am going to be the center of this movement	7:58
	in hockey perhaps,	8:02
	I have got the power and I'm going to keep it	8:04
	because I'm going to score the goal.	8:06
	And I don't intend to pass to anybody else.	8:08
	We know that in no time	8:12
	that team will be a shambles.	8:13
	As soon as in our potential to united world,	8:16
	one nation says	8:19
	predominantly recognizably above the others, I am.	8:21
	Then we know the word that begins to be spelt out.	8:26
	And that word is war.	8:29
	What has been said	8:34
	You see that Jesus came to strike out to the eye.	8:35
	And some people say,	8:42
	if you put an eye on a black board	8:43
	and take out a white piece of chalk	8:45
	and strike it out,	8:47
	you make a cross,	8:48
	to which some of you are saying	8:53
	that is rather familiar as a story.	8:54
	And anyway, pure as a lesson.	8:57
	And yet without apology,	9:01
	I start in that way	9:02
	because so part is my own country is concern.	9:04
	And sometimes I get a glimpse of it,	9:08
	paddled out here in this land.	9:10
	So far as my own country is concerned,	9:13
	I'm always amazed at the number of people there	9:15
	who are absolutely maturing in every other regard.	9:19
	And for some reason or another	9:24
	serve from a rested development,	9:27
	when they face the real opposite of the gospel,	9:29
	that is to say they stopped short in	9:34
	that in our minds	9:36
	with the feeling	9:37
	that the essence of religion or Christianity is	9:38
	that we had to be unselfish.	9:41
	And with all our hymns and prayers,	9:44
	and even our sacraments are about infinite variations	9:47
	on one theme, permutations	9:51
	and combinations on one formula,	9:55
	which is that we must rarely be unselfish.	9:58
	But that's not the gospel.	10:05
	Everyone knows the gospel means good news.	10:08
	And I don't find it particularly good news to be told that	10:10
	I've got to be on selfish.	10:14
	As a matter of fact,	10:17
	I don't even have to come to church or sing a single hymn,	10:19
	in order to be reminded	10:25
	that I've got to be unselfish.	10:26
	I've only got to live in a family	10:29
	or play in a team,	10:32
	or look at the grain wall clouds	10:34
	and our world to know	10:37
	that we've got to be unselfish.	10:40
	Now, the beginning of the gospel of God	10:46
	is much more terrifying.	10:48
	The beginning of the gospel of God	10:51
	is that God's unselfish.	10:53
	You see the terrifying thing about man	10:58
	is not that he's bad.	11:00
	That might just be a fact.	11:01
	The terrifying thing about man is his mystery,	11:03
	which is the debridement bad	11:07
	when everybody wants to be good.	11:09
	The terrifying thing for instance	11:15
	about the 2nd of September 1,939,	11:16
	when the Second World War broke out,	11:20
	the terrifying thing in Europe was that	11:23
	there were about 400 million people in Europe,	11:25
	398 million of whom did not want to go to war.	11:29
	So we went to war.	11:37
	I happen to have traveled the world in a good deal.	11:42
	And in my own country,	11:45
	I happen for years to have dealt with men,	11:46
	coming out of prison	11:48
	and do run camps for boys	11:49
	and senior boys, in reformatory	11:51
	the most difficult of them.	11:53
	And yet I can still stand in this pulpit	11:57
	and say that I've never yet met a man	12:00
	who wanted to be bad.	12:02
	Have you?	12:06
	This is the terror.	12:10
	The good that we would will do not	12:13
	and that which we would not.	12:14
	We find we've been in gone and done it.	12:18
	The good news of the gospel of God is that	12:26
	God knew we were like this.	12:30
	And God seem did something about it,	12:33
	God self nodded himself.	12:38
	God was unselfish.	12:43
	God struck out the I.	12:47
	God was in Christ,	12:52
	reconciling the world to himself	12:55
	by this, which is dumb.	12:59
	What do we mean when we say that God was in Christ,	13:03
	reconciling the world to himself?	13:05
	But it's many years ago now,	13:09
	but I'll never forget	13:10
	a young medical student in Edinburgh	13:11
	who once came to me	13:13
	and said from the age of 17,	13:14
	to the time of his graduation,	13:18
	to the time of the completion of his course,	13:19
	he hated his father	13:23
	up to the age of 17 things would be normal.	13:26
	And from that age,	13:28
	his father began to drive him.	13:29
	And whenever he had holidays or vacations,	13:31
	he kept the lad with his mind on his books	13:33
	and never let him away.	13:37
	And he hated his father	13:40
	until they came to the evening	13:43
	before his graduation his capping,	13:45
	then his father said,	13:50
	I can afford to tell you something now	13:51
	that I haven't dared to tell you,	13:53
	since you were 17.	13:55
	When you were 17	13:57
	I got my marching orders from the doctor	13:59
	who told me I should stop all work	14:01
	and just lie up	14:03
	if I wanted to preserve my life.	14:04
	I had no money set aside.	14:08
	My only hope was to take a risk on it	14:10
	and go to the office every day.	14:13
	Not knowing whether it would be alive,	14:14
	that I was brought home in the evening.	14:16
	But now that you are through,	14:20
	I can tell you.	14:24
	The boy said to me from that moment,	14:27
	I was reconciled to my father.	14:28
	God was in Christ,	14:36
	reconciling the world to himself.	14:38
	And if I'm going to be honest this morning,	14:40
	I have to admit to you	14:43
	that I'm not always very satisfied	14:44
	with the slick answers of the church,	14:47
	about this question of God	14:48
	caring for every individual.	14:52
	I could bring so many instances,	14:57
	but I'm not going to take your time doing it	14:59
	because you could all bring me instances back,	15:01
	which seemed to declare that	15:04
	God does not care for the individual.	15:06
	I remember in one of the parishes which I had,	15:10
	there was a no crown.	15:12
	An old woman who was absolutely paralyzed	15:14
	hand, and foot	15:18
	and she was being looked after by her daughter	15:19
	who herself, was a widow	15:21
	with two most boisterous children	15:23
	in a two roomed house.	15:26
	And this old lady used to tell me	15:28
	she was a God-fearing woman.	15:30
	She used to tell me that	15:32
	she prayed that death might	15:33
	visit the house	15:34
	that she might be taken away to leave her daughter	15:36
	to look up after these boisterous children,	15:40
	without having to wait on her,	15:43
	help this old thing handle foot.	15:45
	Well, death did visit the home.	15:49
	It took away the door turn.	15:53
	Left the old lady helpless	15:58
	and trebled with two boisterous children.	16:00
	She was a God-fearing woman.	16:06
	You could give me instances back	16:10
	that God doesn't seem to care for the individual.	16:11
	But God was in Christ,	16:16
	reconciling the world to himself saying,	16:18
	this is what God is really like.	16:21
	And faith is to believe	16:22
	that God is really light despite the seeming	16:24
	and despite the shadows.	16:26
	God is really like what Jesus says.	16:28
	And then of course does reveal	16:35
	the love of God in ways	16:37
	that no man can put into words	16:38
	we can fumble about within adequate parallels.	16:40
	And I suppose the nearest parallel	16:43
	to glimpse what we mean	16:45
	by the love of God	16:46
	and what it does to us.	16:47
	The nearest parallel is the love of a mother,	16:49
	particularly the love of a mother for a ailing son.	16:52
	You know that six line poem by LaPorte,	16:56
	trench of a lad who kills his mother's love	16:59
	or tries to kill his mother's love	17:03
	and what the mother does about it.	17:05
	I pulled that once in the lead	17:08
	so trim gave his heart to her who loved not him and said	17:10
	and said she	17:15
	bring me tonight your robe	17:17
	your mother's hat to feed my dog.	17:20
	To his mother's heart	17:26
	when that young man killed her,	17:27
	cut out her heart and ran	17:30
	but as he was running	17:32
	luckily he fell.	17:34
	And the heart rolled out on the ground as well.	17:35
	And the ladders, the heart was a rolling,	17:38
	heard that the heart was speaking,	17:40
	and this was the word.	17:42
	The heart was weeping and trying so small.	17:44
	Are you hurt my child?	17:49
	Are you hurt at all?	17:50
	Doesn't matter what you do to a mother's love.	17:56
	You can kill it.	17:58
	Her whole concern is how far	18:00
	you have hurt yourself in the process.	18:01
	This is what is revealed about God	18:05
	and you and me and the cross of Jesus Christ.	18:07
	It doesn't matter what we do.	18:10
	We can crucify him.	18:11
	And his continuing concern is only	18:13
	how far we've hurt ourselves	18:16
	in the process.	18:19
	God was in Christ,	18:24
	reconciling the world to himself.	18:25
	This is good news.	18:32
	Forget about the struck Howard high	18:37
	and begin to see	18:38
	the comfort of the cross	18:39
	that flows from it once.	18:41
	Why don't you see?	18:44
	Take this symbol of the comfort that flows at once.	18:47
	Take the symbol of a minus sign.	18:53
	We all know the psychological effect of a minus sign.	18:57
	It means in debt,	19:00
	the business man,	19:02
	at the end of the year,	19:03
	when you get the draft to consider	19:04
	doesn't look at the details.	19:05
	He goes to the last page to find	19:06
	whether over the years of working	19:09
	it's credit worth.	19:10
	That gloom or hope.	19:13
	We're not concerned with a business man.	19:19
	We're concerned with you.	19:21
	And we're concerned with me	19:22
	and as far as I'm concerned.	19:23
	And I asked you to be equally honest,	19:25
	what is the account of your life so far?	19:27
	I suggested to minus sign.	19:31
	I suggested to debt.	19:33
	I suggest that the good that we would,	19:36
	we not to that,	19:38
	which we would not that we do.	19:40
	Now, this is where God works.	19:43
	The essence of the gospel of God is that	19:46
	God knew we were like this.	19:48
	We can only talk in symbol,	19:51
	but don't imagine that	19:52
	because the church talks in symbol,	19:53
	it's talking fairytales signs,	19:55
	can't move a foot	19:57
	without talking in terms of symbol.	19:58
	And our symbol is this,	20:01
	that God came down out of highest heaven right down to man	20:03
	where he couldn't be.	20:07
	And our neighbors would be surprised	20:09
	at where you and I can be.	20:12
	God comes down to us there	20:16
	and cuts in half our minus sign.	20:20
	And God says	20:25
	so far as I'm concerned, you're creditable.	20:26
	You're a plus.	20:32
	In our own estimations	20:36
	we are a minus sign	20:37
	and how right we are.	20:38
	And don't delude yourself.	20:41
	In the estimation of our friends,	20:42
	most of us are minus signs	20:44
	or as we say our charity,	20:46
	we've all got our faults.	20:48
	This is the gospel of God.	20:50
	That's so far as God is concerned.	20:53
	And only so far as God is concerned about all predictable.	20:55
	That's good news.	21:04
	And if this is about you,	21:11
	and this is about me.	21:13
	And if this is about you	21:15
	at the point of your failure	21:16
	and about me at the point about failure,	21:18
	that's a fault,	21:24
	as God is concerned.	21:25
	Not about your achievements,	21:26
	but about the thing that you can master.	21:31
	The God of this moment is saying to you	21:36
	as far as I'm concerned	21:38
	you are creditable in Jesus Christ.	21:39
	That's good news.	21:48
	That is what worship is all about.	21:53
	That could all these buildings put about to know	21:57
	all these sacraments are celebrated about.	21:59
	The sacrifice of our thanksgiving	22:03
	because there's no other sacrifice we could make.	22:05
	That we've been made creditable.	22:10
	That's why I call the last point,	22:16
	not the challenge of the cross,	22:19
	but the consequence of the cross.	22:23
	Because if you get this thing at all,	22:27
	it doesn't challenge.	22:28
	If you get this thing at all,	22:32
	it's a love story.	22:33
	If you get this thing at all	22:35
	it must must have a consequence.	22:36
	And what is the consequence	22:40
	by what could the consequence be?	22:42
	Now that we've been made creditable,	22:47
	we've got to become the ministry of reconciliation.	22:49
	God was in Christ,	22:53
	reconciling the world to himself,	22:54
	not counting against you	22:56
	and me our trespasses	22:57
	and giving to us	22:59
	the ministry of reconciliation.	23:00
	The last symbol is just that	23:07
	a trust is the opposite of a circle.	23:09
	You know, a circle has as a psychological effect	23:10
	on your being closed in	23:14
	like being in a field with a fence around it	23:16
	and no gate in it.	23:18
	Inhibited held in,	23:20
	but across is the opposite.	23:22
	It points infinitely upwards	23:24
	and infinitely down	23:26
	infinitely to the right hand	23:27
	and infinitely to the left-hand.	23:28
	Freedom potentiality.	23:31
	God comes down out of highest heaven to you	23:34
	and me where,	23:37
	you know, we can get,	23:38
	and he says,	23:41
	you are creditable.	23:42
	Therefore, without limitation, without condition,	23:44
	we've got to be the forgiving people	23:51
	that God is to us.	23:56
	Jesus, as we know was very stern	24:01
	that at least is coming back into	24:05
	the consciousness of men.	24:06
	But let's be careful.	24:09
	Let's remember what he was most stunned about.	24:11
	What he was most stunned about was the people	24:15
	who didn't forgive.	24:18
	He sums it in the shortest	24:20
	and the most terrifying of his parables	24:22
	what he tells of a man	24:25
	who was forgiven a million dollars.	24:26
	And the first thing that man did was to go	24:29
	and get back the $5	24:31
	that a friend owed him down the street.	24:33
	Forgiving a million dollars	24:38
	and to begin to move out,	24:40
	to get back the $5	24:41
	that someone owes you.	24:43
	Jesus does not say of that man,	24:47
	that he was unimaginative.	24:49
	He doesn't save that man	24:52
	that he was stingy.	24:53
	He says of that man, quite simply	24:56
	that he is dumb.	24:58
	What's gone wrong of course is that	25:07
	if I may say so, is my last word	25:10
	what's gone wrong is that	25:13
	we've taken the cross	25:14
	and we've done that with it.	25:16
	And here, is all the business of religion.	25:19
	He has all the business of Sundays and of souls	25:22
	and of salvation.	25:25
	And here's the business of ordinary life.	25:29
	Here's the business of the weekday.	25:33
	Here's the business of how to put things into practice.	25:35
	And this hardly works here.	25:39
	Does it?	25:41
	So we live at the standard of the world.	25:43
	We've taken the cross and put it apart.	25:47
	And what has happened,	25:49
	why are the religions becoming more and more vacuous?	25:52
	And people just don't know	25:55
	what all this abracadabra	25:56
	about salvation meanings.	25:57
	And our well	26:01
	before our very eyes are unforgiving	26:02
	and unforgiving world	26:04
	before our very eyes is going to hell.	26:06
	When you put it back again	26:14
	and applied to the real situations	26:17
	where people haven't forgiven you	26:19
	and where nations are difficult to forgive	26:24
	and begin to apply that.	26:28
	Then your religion comes alive	26:34
	and the world has a chance of being saved.	26:39
	But don't make any mistake	26:48
	about what the response is.	26:51
	Jesus took two years to assure us	26:56
	that if we go his way,	27:00
	our lives will be the sheer design of a cross	27:03
	Let us pray.	27:16
	Oh, Christ, "the Master Carpenter"	27:37
	who threw wooden nails	27:43
	at the last purchase man's whole salvation.	27:46
	Wheeled, well dyed tools in the workshop of thy world	27:52
	that we who come rafewen to die bench	27:57
	may be fashion to a,	27:58
	through a beauty of thy hand	28:04
	through Jesus Christ Our Lord.	28:08
	Amen.	28:13
	Now I may the God of Peace,	28:15
	the body raised from the dead	28:17
	our Lord Jesus,	28:19
	that great shepherd of the sheep	28:20
	through the blood of the everlasting covenant	28:23
	make you perfect in every good work to do his will	28:26
	working in you	28:32
	that which is well pleasing in his sight	28:34
	through Jesus Christ,	28:38
	to whom be glory forever.	28:40
	Amen.	28:45
	(congregants singing hymns)	28:47

Item Info

Title:

George F. MacLeod - "The Cross" (January 23, 1955)

Description:

God came down as Jesus to sacrifice himself for our sins, thus reconciling ourselves and God. It is then our job as humans to continue praising and reconciling people with God, as the cross we can bear is giving thanks to God and love to fellow humans. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: "That's what worship is all about. That's what all these buildings are put up about, that all these sacraments are celebrated about. The sacrifice of our thanksgiving because there's no other sacrifice we can make. That we be made credible."

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r43x87m85

Date:

January 23, 1955

Speaker:

MacLeod, George F.

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0006
ref5235_5v7
uachapelsermaud
duke:627956
dcrau002062
ark:/87924/r43x87m85
1306fa9a-0c32-4023-ac64-25644dc28c52

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

Educational Use Permitted

Rights Note:

This material is made available for educational and non-commercial use. This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the license indicated here. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For other reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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