Reconciliation at the foot of the Cross

Sven Ljungholm writes at the FSAOF web-site:
In our individual preparation for Easter, and as we take this time to journey through Lent, I want to take you to Moscow, in the spring of 1992. It is Easter Sunday morning and we conducted our service in a rented thousand seat auditorium; our “hall” for the last several months. It was the first Easter service conducted in a Moscow, Russia Salvation Army hall in 70 years, the last one having been celebrated by my grandfather, Adjutant Otto Ljungholm.

Near the front of the hall, in the shadow of a twelve-foot cross sat a girl of twelve or thirteen. By this time she had been coming to the corps regularly along with others from a nearby orphanage. As I brought the Easter message I was gripped by what seemed like secretive, searching glances of this young girl. Her eyes darted from the cross, to me and then to a poorly dressed woman seated some distance away.

As the invitation was given to ‘come to Christ and be reconciled with your loving Heavenly Father’ the young girl stepped forward, with scores of others into the aisle and moved slowly towards the crudely constructed cross. At the same moment, the shabbily dressed woman also stood up and with determined strides approached the many already standing and kneeling at the foot of the cross. Both the woman and child moved through the crowd and, paused for a moment, just inches apart, and somewhat awkwardly, faced each other and exchanged words.

As others continued to respond to God’s invitation these two strangers, continued their private dialogue, becoming more and more animated. Then it happened! As a thousand people watched, the woman wrapped her arms around the young girl and then lifted her up, there, right in front of the cross!! In that moment, the two were reconciled under the cross of Christ…

I later learned that the woman was a loving mother who had been unable to provide proper care for her three-year old child and had been forced to give her up to the care of others. Now, some ten years later, they stood under the cross of Christ at a Salvation Army hall in Moscow, holding each other and vowing never to separate again.

After the service, the teenage girl said to me, with tears streaming down her face: ‘A stranger hugged me, but it was my Mother.’ This is the central message of the cross. A loving parent, God, calls to us, His estranged children to come. At the cross of Christ our relationship with God is restored.

(Published with permission by Sven Ljungholm)
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