THE CROSS IS DIVINE PROXIMITY On the God Who Came Where We Were

 THE CROSS IS DIVINE PROXIMITY

On the God Who Came Where We Were

God did not save us
from a distance.

He came.
Before there was a cross,
there was already
a movement toward us.

The Word became flesh.
The Eternal entered time.
The Holy entered dust.

The One whom heaven
could not contain
entered a human body,

a village,
a family,
a road,
a crowd,
a wound.
God came where we were.

He did not study hunger
from heaven.
He became hungry.

He did not observe thirst
from eternity.
He said,
“I thirst.”

He did not send
a theory of compassion
to the leper.

He touched him.

He did not explain mercy
to the wounded.
He became
the wounded One.

And finally,
between heaven
and earth,
between holiness
and human violence,
between abandonment
and redemption,
there stood a cross.

Not as the monument
of divine distance,
but as its destruction.

The Cross is divine proximity.

God with us
when the body breaks.

God with us
when friends disappear.

God with us
when injustice wounds.

God with us
when the crowd condemns.

God with us
when darkness falls.

God with us
even at the grave.

The Cross declares:

There is no wound
beneath God's willingness
to come near.

And therefore
those who stand beneath the Cross
cannot make distance
their permanent theology.

We cannot worship
the One who came near

and continually choose
the other side of the road.

We cannot proclaim
the wounded Christ

while refusing
the wounded neighbor.

We cannot lift the Cross
above the sanctuary

and forget the person
beneath the bridge.

For the road to Jericho
and the road to Calvary
ask the same terrible question:

Will love come near?

The Samaritan came
where the wounded man was.

Christ came
where humanity was.

And now the Gospel
turns toward us:

Go,
and do thou likewise.

The Cross therefore
does not merely ask
to be believed.

It asks
to be followed.

From sanctuary
to street.

From doctrine
to mercy.

From seeing
to touching.

From knowing
to serving.

From distance
to neighbor.

For perhaps
the shape of salvation
is already written
in the movement of Christ:

He came near.

And perhaps
the shape of discipleship
must become the same:

Come near.

Come near
to the forgotten.

Come near
to the wounded.

Come near
to the stranger.

Come near
to the one
the world has learned
to pass by.

Because at Calvary
God did not shout love
across the distance.

He crossed it.

The Cross stands
as the eternal witness:

God came where we were.

And beneath that Cross
the question passes
from Christ to us:

Now—
where will you go,
and to whom
will you come near?

Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
September 15, 2026

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