The Cross in the Desert

You may have missed this controversy over the last few years, but perhaps, at last, the issue is resolved. And we need to be grateful, thankful, and publicly acknowledge the Supreme Court’s action.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Wednesday that a federal court went too far in ordering the removal of a congressionally (sic) endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home in California. The ruling was 5-4, with the court’s conservatives in the majority. The Veterans of Foreign Wars erected the cross more than 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve. It has been covered with plywood for the past several years following the court rulings. (Associated Press)

I am pleased that supporters of the desert memorial cross have “won.” I am far more concerned that the “cross” in the life of believers often remains shuttered behind a plywood edifice of diminishing commitment to the things of God and a penchant for making the narrow road broad. We may work hard to maintain the representations of “the cross” in the public eye, but if we fail to live daily under the constraints of Him who died on the only cross that really matters, what have we accomplished?