If I Be Lifted Up

These sermons represent an attempt to approach the central meaning of the Cross along several confessedly incomplete avenues of approach. I think of them as a little circle of converging but incompleted radii all pointing toward (and therefore in a sense defining) but none of them finally touching the real heart of the meaning of the Cross. Were any of us able at last to do this we should unlock the mystery of life itself. Even Dr. Moberly in his great book Atonement and Personality begins by saying: Atonement is a reality much too fundamental to human consciousness to be capable of any ready explanation. Our explanations at their best are still always partial explanations. It is always more than our understanding of it. And so it is that one does not hesitate to add his own convictions to the many words that are written and said about the meaning of the Cross of Christ. --from the Foreword Samuel M. Shoemaker (1893-1963) was an Episcopal priest in New York part of the Oxford Group and played a role in the founding the Alcoholics Anonymous. He is also the author of By the Power of God The Conversion of the Church The Experiment of Faith Realizing Religion and How to Become a Christian.