That first Palm Sunday parade ended. Five days later a different crowd watched the same fellow pass before them. This Jesus did not make His move to overthrow Rome. Arrested, tried, and convicted, He staggered out of the city He loved. A wooden instrument of death crushed Him now. The words of the prophet Zechariah seemed hollow now. The ride into town on the donkey came to nothing. He seemed defeated by His enemies. He died. End of story. Where was the glory in that awful death?

Look around you today. His glory shines from everyone of us who loves Him. We are His glory! Palms are waved today, for we know what happened the following Sunday. Some Christians take their palms and shape them into crosses. Other palm branches are dried, then burned and the ashes used to begin a new season of Lent. Ah, tradition! Some love that tradition. But if you make too much of tradition and you risk missing the message. Paul faced that problem!

Paul faced trouble makers in the early Church. They wanted new believers to believe Jesus their way, and keep their traditions. Judaizers were those who held tradition over Jesus Christ. They did not have a clue to the meaning of the cross. You see, they did not know the PERSON OF THE CROSS. They are still with us - Methodizers, Pentecostalizers, and dare I say it - we have Presbyterianizers. We are notorious for sober worship. (Certainly not here, of course)! I heard this actually happened in one of our churches. A woman really was into the message of the pastor. "Amen!" Everyone woke up. "Hallelujah!" she blurted out a moment later. An usher approached her and whispered, "You will have to be quiet." "But, I’ve got the joy of Jesus!" "Well, Madam, you didn’t get it here."

The one great symbol of our faith is the cross of Jesus Christ. Today, the cross can sell for thousands of dollars - a polished piece of jewelry. When Jesus died, the cross was very cheap. But it was costly to wear one. It was a terrible instrument of torture and certain death. Once you made it to the cross, you did not come back alive! The cross draws us to Christ.

Today, be sure you know THE PERSON on the cross- who He is. Then PURPOSE AND POWER OF THE CROSS WILL BE YOURS! His joy, hope and faith become yours! Any one can wear a cross ...BUT THE SPIRIT OF GOD MAKES THE CROSS REAL IN THE LIFE OF EVERY MAN AND WOMAN, BOY AND GIRL WHO LOVES OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Oh, friends, when we see Him who died for us, we get to see His cross with fresh vision of love! Some of you might join Paul when you look at this cross: BUT MAY IT NEVER BE THAT I SHOULD GLORY, EXCEPT IN THE CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST,...(Gal 6.14)

Let this verse reveal some of the many reasons we can hold in our lives, so that we CAN GLORY IN THE CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

We gain a SENSE OF OUR WORTH AS HUMAN BEINGS! We are valued! Beneath the cross of Jesus, we see Him between two thieves. Those men had their own stories to tell. They must have broken the hearts of their parents. Now their stories end on the same hill.

We forget the first fellow. He cried out, "Get yourself, AND US, out of this mess!" Someone must have always been there to rescue him, to bail him out, and to aid him to this cross. The second thief asked only that he be remembered, "when you come in Your kingdom." The first thief could have joined the second thief in the request. He missed out. Even on the cross at his death, the second thief discovered that he had value: "This day you will be with me in Paradise."

Here’s great news! Even today - you have value, you are worth something to God. No matter where you have been, no matter what you have done, when you meet Christ at the cross, you can discover GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, AND YOU! THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM...you can place your name here..WILL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.

You and I need this word today! Cyberspace connects us to the world, but isolates us from our family and neighbors. We can chat around the world, but miss saying, ‘I love you,’ to our own family. We can read of discoveries in science, but fail to discover the first rose in our own garden.

The tragedies of school killings alerted us to the loneliness and isolation so many people feel in their lives. They become desperate. They live in a cyber-world, but feel cut off, insignificant. Anger and rage take over and lives are crushed. How much more then must we show others the worth they have in Christ. It could be nothing more than being polite to the stranger. That stranger could be sitting right next to you this morning.

Stand beneath the cross of Jesus - our hearts break with grief. But they also throb with joy! Here is the one place in the world where we know we are loved, wanted, respected. We try to fathom the depth of that mystery. One thing we know - THE CROSS IS FOR YOU! God suffered there FOR YOU BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU! Pass on it on! That’s the glory of the cross.

He RESTORES OUR INTEGRITY AS HUMAN BEINGS. He makes you and me WHOLE PERSONS AGAIN! A woman, crushed over her failure to be faithful to her husband, went to a hotel room on the sixth floor. She wrote a note to husband and family, opened the window and jumped out. Instead of dying, she landed on the top of a convertible car. She woke up in the emergency room. "O God, am I still alive? O, God, forgive me!" A sensitive doctor smiled and said, "God will forgive you. Don’t worry. We will help you learn to love yourself again."

That is the hard stuff of recovery. Can we learn to love ourselves again when we have betrayed the love which loves us most completely? We have within our very nature a desire to be whole persons. When God is left out or blocked out, that whole person does not live. So, we try to fix it ourselves. One character in a play confessed this kind of struggle to his psychiatrist. "It’s not anything I’ve ever done, which I might get away from..or get rid of, but of emptiness, outside of myself, and I feel I must-.....atone...is that the word?" (T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party)

Exactly! Moral failure cannot be solved by us. Yet, we try. It is our own sense of justice. We blew it with God. We must make it right someway, somehow! But it is right here we see the glory of the cross of Christ.

Where we cannot fix ourselves...HE ATONES...that is...He paid the debt He did not owe, on the very debt we cannot pay....what He did on the cross was sufficient..HE BORE OUR SIN IN HIS BODY ON THE TREE. (I Peter 2) He did it all! Accept His gift with grateful hearts!

In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian has left the City of Destruction and has gained entrance at the Wicket-gate. But he still carries a heavy burden. He cannot continue his journey to the end. He comes to a hill, "and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a tomb. So, I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, the burden loosed to tumble..until it came to the mouth of the tomb, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Blessed cross! Blessed tomb! Blessed rather be the man who there was put to shame for me!"

Do you want to be whole? At the cross you can be forgiven and released from your past. You can be made WHOLE AGAIN! GLORY!

We glory in the cross because CHRIST BECOMES OUR STRENGTH TO LIVE FOR HIM!

Life without Christ - OUCH! That is having dreams, but never going anywhere. That is life that never means anything. Oh sure, the world continues to discover and invent and make life for some very comfortable...we are nuclear giants and ethical midgets. Without Christ, we are weak where it matters - in the issues of life and hope and a future with God.

It is the glory of the Cross that Christ in His death gives us who trust Him STRENGTH TO LIVE FOR HIM! If Christ on the cross restores our value and our integrity, surely His strength can become our strength to live for Him. The cross is the power of God unto salvation! Think of what took place on the cross is like our nuclear plant. Electricity is generated through that plant and sends it all over this part of Arkansas. None of us is hooked up directly to the plant. There are transformers that reduce the mighty power of that plant so you and I can toast our bread and watch tv and do so many other things.

So, Christ on the cross is the transformer that God has used to bring His wonder-working power to us who trust Him. His power becomes our power, our strength to live for Him. Question: are you living in your own strength, or are you living in the strength of the One who died for you?

We glory in the cross of Christ because WE KNOW THE PERSON - JESUS CHRIST. He sees each of us as valued...worth His love, His life. He MAKES US WHOLE AGAIN. MEN AND WOMEN OF INTEGRITY. HIS STRENGTH BECOMES OURS TO LIVE FOR HIM!