A friend stopped by my house yesterday with a simple message. “The Cross is the way,” he told me and handed me a metal cross he had forged earlier that day. I held the cross in my hand and thanked him for the gift. I set it on my desk and went about the day’s business with little further thought.
Today, I am contemplating all the ways that God is speaking to me through this simple, unique, and unexpected gift.
Today, I am contemplating all the ways that God is speaking to me through this simple, unique, and unexpected gift. The cross is small enough to fit in my hand but feels heavy and substantial. It is marked and rather rough from the hammer strokes it experienced against the anvil during its making. The craftsman that created this piece had heated it over and over, held it in his talented hands, used his craftsman’s tools to form it, and finally cooled it so that it would hold its shape for as long as I own it.
The substantial weight of this tiny object reminds me of the importance of the cross Christ carried through the streets; a cross made heavier by my sins. The hammer marks remind me of how God has taken great pain to form me, mold me, and make me in the shape he desires. My hard heart and stiff neck sometimes require a hammer rather than a gentle reminder. The gift seemed random to me but is only possible through my friend’s skill, labor, and inspiration, very much like the gift of salvation forged by my savior Jesus Christ.
The cross reminds me of all the times God called out to me in the furnace. All the times He was there when I did not ask him to be. All the times, I was hiding from him because of my sin and failures. He would pull me from the heat of the forge and bend me this way, hammer me that way, and cool me with peace that is beyond my understanding. God’s love for me has never failed, and this little cross tells me so much in so many ways about that.
The little cross my friend handed me still has all the hammer marks on it where Kenny had taken the heated blank metal to form it. These marks show that each and every time I marked my life with sin, God matched every sin with a hammer stroke of forgiveness on the cross of Christ.
Thank you, Kenny Harrison, for your witness. Thank you for the man you are and for the friend you have become. God has blessed me with you, and I will never be the same – I will always carry the hammer marks of your affection and the coolness of your friendship.
