Cross is focus of Worship
By Melissa Lauber
Our Refrain: “We are one beneath the cross, Christ became love for us. Called by Grace, sent to run, we stand as one at the cross.”
Gathered beneath the cross, as one, last evening, the people of the Baltimore-Washington Conference vowed to uphold Abraham James McCubbin-Dominguez as he was baptized. They claimed the promises of Ephesians 4 that were presented by the youth, took in the lessons of young mimes from St. Matthews UMC in Turner Station, gave $11,915 to an offering to support the 200,000 hours of time young people will spend this summer at camp, and partook of Holy Communion.
But mostly, they worshipped, ignited by the preaching of Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, the presiding bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.
“In his dying, Christ taught us how to live,” said the bishop. “He taught us that the ground at the foot of the cross is equal.”
At the foot of the cross, there is love, said Bishop Easterling, who marveled at how
“the world lost its collective mind,” when Bishop Michael Curry preached on the theme of love at the recent royal wedding.
“It was a great sermon. And, it was not new.” Before Bishop Curry preached it, she said, Paul wrote it, Christ lived it, and God breathed it into the very air we breathe. “Yet, the world took notice,” said the bishop. “It is astounding and compelling because although there are approximately 2.2 billion Christians in the world, we are still wrestling with the notion of love – of what it means to be in love with God, in love with Christ and with each other. With approximately 2.2 billion Christians in the world we ought to be swimming in love,” she said.
The bishop shared her belief that “many of us are struggling to believe this message of all-encompassing love because it contradicts everything the world stands for,” including power, wealth, victory and certainty. “The message of the cross is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive, and it shakes us to our very core.
“…Beloved, to be Christ-followers, we have to be willing to immerse ourselves in love – a love that’s self-sacrificing, self-emptying” and embraces those on the opposite political, economic and theological side – those who don’t think, act, preach, pray, dance or believe like us, the bishop said.
Proclaiming the need for love and unity might seem, to some, to be hypocritical. But, said Easterling, “some things are true whether we accept them or not. … The ‘is-ness’ of God is not threatened by the ‘ain’t-ness’ of man.”
The bishop reminded the more than 1,200 lay and clergy members, “that road God called us to travel began at the foot of the cross.”
But the question, she said, is are we capable of traveling it together? “How can we do that in our present state? We travel it with humility. We travel it understanding ourselves as sinners saved by grace … We travel it by allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us. We travel it by embracing the meaning and message of the cross.”