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Creekside Church, Sunday, March 29, 2026
The Mirror & The Magnet
Locations & Times
Creekside Church
660 Conservation Dr, Waterloo, ON N2J 3Z4, Canada
Sunday 8:25 AM
Sunday 9:45 AM
Sunday 11:15 AM
The cross of Christ is the central image of our faith, yet it is often reduced to a single sentence. The cross is a multifaceted, complex, and mysterious masterpiece. Like a diamond, it reveals different treasures depending on how the light hits it.
The theologian Fleming Rutledge wrote a massive volume on the crucifixion simply because the cross is more complex than any one theory or metaphor can contain. We must approach it with a sense of awe.
Our hope is that the cross becomes more than an individualized event; it has both personal and cosmic meaning. It is bigger, wider, and deeper than we often imagine.
THE SHADOW OF THE OLD COVENANT
To understand what Jesus accomplished, we look back at the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament.
LEVITICUS 16:6-10
6 “Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. 7 Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.
This annual ceremony provided two things:
THE SACRIFICED GOAT (Legal Basis): The first goat was sacrificed to provide a legal basis for forgiveness. Sin was judged so that the people could be forgiven.
THE SCAPEGOAT (Deliverance): The second goat was the "Azazel." The High Priest would lay his hands on its head, confessing the sins of the nation. It was then driven into the wilderness, physically carrying the sins away from the camp.
The benefit of this was a visual catharsis. The people saw their failures leaving the camp. They felt the distance of their sin. As the Psalmist would later write:
PSALM 103:12
As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
However, all of this was temporary. The conscience was clear for a day, but the next week, the cycle of sin began again. For 1,400 years and over 50 generations, thousands of goats were offered. It was a system of managing sin, not defeating it.
THE FINISHED WORK OF JESUS
Jesus arrived to show that these ceremonies were merely shadows of what he would do once and for all.
JESUS AS THE FIRST GOAT: He was the sacrifice whose blood purchased our forgiveness.
MATTHEW 26:28
For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
JESUS AS THE SECOND GOAT: He carried our sins far away into the grave, and when he rose, he left them there.
1 PETER 2:24
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
JOHN 1:29
Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
The writer of Hebrews explains that because Jesus is the final sacrifice, the old cycle of constant offerings is over.
HEBREWS 9:12
He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
READ HEBREWS CHAPTER 10
Because this work is finished, we must stop living in shame. Sin no longer has a legal claim on you.
COLOSSIANS 2:14
By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
1 CORINTHIANS 15:56
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
THE CROSS AS REVELATION OF LOVE
The cross is also the ultimate revelation of God’s character.
1 JOHN 3:16
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 JOHN 4:7-11
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Some suggest the cross is merely a "Moral Influence"—an example of love intended to melt our hearts. But the cross only has the power to change our hearts because it first accomplished something objective. It wasn't just a demonstration; it was a rescue.
If the cross is only an example of love, it is unnecessarily gruesome. But if it is the place where the power of evil was broken and the bill of indictment was nailed away, then it becomes the power of a new life.
A GRAND SYNTHESIS
When we talk about the cross, we must hold all its meanings together. It is a grand synthesis of many resolutions:
THE LEGAL RESOLUTION: A ransom (kopher) was paid and justice was satisfied.
THE COSMIC RESOLUTION: Jesus as King has defeated death and taken back creation.
THE REPRESENTATIVE RESOLUTION: Where humanity failed in a garden (Eden) by eating from a tree, Jesus succeeded in a garden (Gethsemane) and on a tree (the Cross).
THE MORAL RESOLUTION: It is the revelation of sacrificial love and the shape our lives are now to embody.
The theologian Fleming Rutledge wrote a massive volume on the crucifixion simply because the cross is more complex than any one theory or metaphor can contain. We must approach it with a sense of awe.
Our hope is that the cross becomes more than an individualized event; it has both personal and cosmic meaning. It is bigger, wider, and deeper than we often imagine.
THE SHADOW OF THE OLD COVENANT
To understand what Jesus accomplished, we look back at the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament.
LEVITICUS 16:6-10
6 “Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. 7 Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.
This annual ceremony provided two things:
THE SACRIFICED GOAT (Legal Basis): The first goat was sacrificed to provide a legal basis for forgiveness. Sin was judged so that the people could be forgiven.
THE SCAPEGOAT (Deliverance): The second goat was the "Azazel." The High Priest would lay his hands on its head, confessing the sins of the nation. It was then driven into the wilderness, physically carrying the sins away from the camp.
The benefit of this was a visual catharsis. The people saw their failures leaving the camp. They felt the distance of their sin. As the Psalmist would later write:
PSALM 103:12
As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
However, all of this was temporary. The conscience was clear for a day, but the next week, the cycle of sin began again. For 1,400 years and over 50 generations, thousands of goats were offered. It was a system of managing sin, not defeating it.
THE FINISHED WORK OF JESUS
Jesus arrived to show that these ceremonies were merely shadows of what he would do once and for all.
JESUS AS THE FIRST GOAT: He was the sacrifice whose blood purchased our forgiveness.
MATTHEW 26:28
For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
JESUS AS THE SECOND GOAT: He carried our sins far away into the grave, and when he rose, he left them there.
1 PETER 2:24
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
JOHN 1:29
Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
The writer of Hebrews explains that because Jesus is the final sacrifice, the old cycle of constant offerings is over.
HEBREWS 9:12
He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
READ HEBREWS CHAPTER 10
Because this work is finished, we must stop living in shame. Sin no longer has a legal claim on you.
COLOSSIANS 2:14
By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
1 CORINTHIANS 15:56
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
THE CROSS AS REVELATION OF LOVE
The cross is also the ultimate revelation of God’s character.
1 JOHN 3:16
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 JOHN 4:7-11
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Some suggest the cross is merely a "Moral Influence"—an example of love intended to melt our hearts. But the cross only has the power to change our hearts because it first accomplished something objective. It wasn't just a demonstration; it was a rescue.
If the cross is only an example of love, it is unnecessarily gruesome. But if it is the place where the power of evil was broken and the bill of indictment was nailed away, then it becomes the power of a new life.
A GRAND SYNTHESIS
When we talk about the cross, we must hold all its meanings together. It is a grand synthesis of many resolutions:
THE LEGAL RESOLUTION: A ransom (kopher) was paid and justice was satisfied.
THE COSMIC RESOLUTION: Jesus as King has defeated death and taken back creation.
THE REPRESENTATIVE RESOLUTION: Where humanity failed in a garden (Eden) by eating from a tree, Jesus succeeded in a garden (Gethsemane) and on a tree (the Cross).
THE MORAL RESOLUTION: It is the revelation of sacrificial love and the shape our lives are now to embody.