The Ball and the Cross

Having been inspired by a dear friend to read better books, I began two this week. One, I've had in my Kindle for weeks now. I love real books and pages and holding paper, but this is one book I'm happy to have digitally. It is "Bonhoeffer: Paster, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" by Eric Metaxas. Have you seen this book? It's huge! I wouldn't ever be inspired to take it with me anywhere because of its size. But the Kindle didn't get any bigger when it was downloaded!

The other book I began is "The Ball and the Cross" by G.K. Chesterton. This one thrilled me in the first chapter because it started to explain something I've been thinking about for over four months now.  

The character named Lucifer claims, "...the cross is the conflict of two hostile lines, of irreconcilable direction. That silent thing up there is essentially a collision, a crash, a struggle in stone. ... The very shape of it is a contradiction in terms."

Then Michael responds, "But we like  contradictions in terms. Man is a contradiction in terms; he is a beast whose superiority to other beasts consists in having fallen That cross is, as you say, an eternal collision; so am I. That is a struggle in stone. Every form of life is a struggle in flesh."

The cross as contradiction itself has long been on my mind. This, however, is part of it's glory. It is the glory of a God who redeems the fallen and makes it whole and beautiful. When the horrible is intersected by the beautiful we then have a cross. And in many ways, this is the Christianity I believe in.