Line Up With The Cross

 

Recently while we were cleaning the church, we started rearranging furniture a little as women like to do. When we were vacuuming the church sanctuary carpeting, we moved the pulpit and communion table, just a little. Oh, nothing too noticeable.

We spruced up the drapes over the window into the baptistery and refreshed the fake ivy in the opening. We moved the Elder’s and Pastor’s chairs on the podium so they were evenly balanced on either side of the stage.

Then we started putting everything back into place and being the perfectionist that I am, I wanted everything to line up straight and be pleasing to the eye.

I wanted the drapes to be open just enough to reveal the rough-cut cross of Christ with the crown of thorns hanging on it, and the purple cloth draped over it. I walked up into the baptistery to re-drape the cloth, hang the crown of thorns just right, and cover a pipe with material so it wouldn’t reflect the light.

Then we started lining up the pulpit with the baptistery window behind it. A couple of people moved the pulpit as I stood at the entry to the hallway and looked down the aisle toward the pulpit.

“A little more to the right. No, that’s too much. Back a little. That’s better.” I wanted to line up the pulpit with the cross.

Now when you walk in the front door, from the foyer into the sanctuary, your eyes are drawn to the oak communion table, the pulpit, and up, where dominating over all is the cross of Christ Jesus, with the crown of thorns He wore when He shed His blood for the world.

The communion table represents the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and when we receive Christ’s salvation, our communion with the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. The pulpit represents the Word of God preached in churches around the globe to hungry people who believe and to a dying world until the return of Christ.

Paul said, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Galatians 6:14 NKJV

Everything in the church must line up with the cross of Christ.