Where are the Crosses?

In the wreckage after 9/11, two steel beams were found, welded by heat into the shape of a cross. Many who worked at the sight found comfort from its presence, but when the city decided to place the cross in the 911 museum, there came harsh protest from the American Atheists organization. And of course they would, because a cross is a dangerous thing. If you drive three and a half hours north of LA into the Mohave Dessert Reserved, then another nine miles into the reserve on an outcropping of rock, was an 8 foot plain white cross, placed there in 1934 as a memorial to the veterans of World War 1. In 2001, a former Park Service employee sued the government, demanding that the cross be removed. This began a nearly decade-long legal battle. A judge ordered that the upper portion of the cross be covered by a plywood box, so that it looked like a blank signboard instead of a cross. The case was battled all the way to the United States Supreme Court. For some reason, a lonely cross out in the remoteness of the Mojave Desert was so threatening that a host of powerful organizations joined the campaign to destroy it. Those organizations included the American Humanist Association, Atheist Alliance International, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, People for The American Way, and the American Civil Liberties Union. And why not? A cross is a dangerous thing. To the lost, it is an uncomfortable symbol. The cross is under siege. 1 Corinthians 1:18 The message about the cross doesn't make any sense to lost people. But for those of us who are being saved, it is God's power at work. You see, the cross cuts both ways. For a believer, it brings you peace, for the non-believer, anger. It can represent eternal salvation or eternal damnation. You see, the cross is convicting, condemning and inviting all at the same time and it declares to humanity the need for a savior, a power beyond ourselves. It points to Jesus Christ who died on a cross and was raised on the third day.