“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2

If the crucifixion was only a story of a man hanging on a cross, any good newspaper reporter could write details of the trial, the sentence and the death in a few paragraphs. The two thieves on either side of Christ were easy to report. They had committed crimes against the state and were sentenced to death. One railed at Jesus, the other asked to be remembered. But to take hold of a full and complete understanding of the cross is impossible. Oscar Black Welder writes, “But the finest of Christian scholarship, the best of Christian experience, the truest of Christian insight for twenty centuries have not fathomed fully the meaning of the cross.”

From my bookshelf, I quote from A. B. Anderson, “The Spirit of the Cross”, written in 1930. (The inside cover is stamped with Landstad Young People’s Society. Landstad is the former name of this church building before Landstad, Brandsvold and Poplar River became Hope Church in 1936.) On page 30, He writes,
“My dear reader, would you like to spend eternity with the Lord Jesus? Would you like to be where He is? Jesus desires that you shall share all the glory with Him. He would like to give you all that He has fallen heir to, plus Himself! How may you enter into this joy of the Lord? By the way of Calvary! By realizing that there is no other way to travel to glory than to trace out the footsteps of the bleeding, suffering Jesus. Behold Him, the crucified and risen Lord Jesus, and the spirit of the cross will fill your heart so that His mind will be in you as you journey onward to the place of rest and joy with the Lord Jesus Christ forever!