TAKE THE CROSS BACK FROM THE FIRE

TAKE THE CROSS BACK FROM THE FIRE

Take the Cross back from the fire.

Not because the wood was burned,
but because its meaning was stolen.

Take it back from the midnight gathering,
from the masked face,
from the raised fist of supremacy,
from every mouth that pronounced the name of God
while teaching the neighbor to be afraid.

For the Cross was never given to humanity
as a throne from which one race might look down upon another.

It was given as the place
where God came down.

The Cross does not rise by making others smaller.
It rises because Christ humbled Himself.

The Cross does not say,
Know your place.

It says,
Come unto Me.

It does not say,
Fear my power.

It says,
Father, forgive them.

It does not divide the worthy from the unworthy
according to blood, color, ancestry, language, or nation.

At Calvary,
the arms of Christ were stretched outward.

And there was room beneath them
for the whole world.

Yet there came a terrible night in American history
when men carried that Cross into darkness
and surrounded it with fire.

They attempted to turn Calvary upside down.
They took the symbol of the suffering Christ
and made it proclaim supremacy.

They took the sign of reconciliation
and made it communicate exclusion.

They took the instrument upon which Christ absorbed violence
and transformed it into an announcement of violence.

They wanted the frightened family looking through the window
to see the Cross
and hear a threat.

But hatred cannot inherit Calvary.
The Cross belongs to the Crucified.

No organization owns it.
No race possesses it.
No political movement may permanently capture it.
No flame can rewrite its Gospel.

Take the Cross back from the fire.

Carry it away from every ideology
that needs another human being beneath it.

Wash from it the fingerprints of domination.
Remove from it the language of racial superiority.
Separate it from the politics of intimidation.

Bring it back to the hill
where power refused to save itself.
Bring it back to the wounded hands.

Bring it back to the pierced side.
Bring it back to the One
who knelt before His disciples
and washed their feet.

There we remember what power looks like
when God holds it.

Power becomes service.
Greatness becomes humility.
Authority becomes responsibility.

The enemy becomes a neighbor to be loved.
The stranger becomes someone to be welcomed.
The wounded become someone to be carried.

And the Cross becomes again
what the fire could never make it cease to be:
the judgment of God
against humanity's obsession with domination,
and the invitation of God
into another kingdom.

So let the fire burn itself out.
Let the masks fall.
Let the crowds go home.
Let history expose what hatred attempted to sanctify.

And let the Church stand before the ashes
and confess that whenever Christianity lends its symbols
to racial supremacy, political terror, or contempt for the neighbor,
it has wandered away from the One it claims to follow.

Then lift the Cross again.
Not above the neighbor—
beside the neighbor.

Not as a warning—
as an invitation.

Not as the emblem of those who dominate—
as the sign of the One who served.

Not to announce who must be excluded—
but to remember the One who died outside the gate.

Take the Cross back from the fire.

Return it to mercy.
Return it to reconciliation.
Return it to the stranger.
Return it to the wounded.
Return it to the neighbor.
Return it to Christ.

For the flames may illuminate the Cross for a night,
but they cannot define it.

The fire eventually dies.

The Cross must answer to the Crucified.
And when the fire is gone,
when the smoke has lifted,
when every borrowed symbol of hatred has fallen into ashes,
the Cross will still stand—
not proclaiming the supremacy of one people over another,

but calling every people,
every nation,
every race,
every neighbor,
to the difficult and redeeming kingdom
of sacrificial love.

Take the Cross back from the fire.
And give it back
to the Crucified.

Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
August 14, 2026