A Cross Over Denver

It was the first time I'd ever been to Denver, CO and it was the first time I had ever seen it. During the evening hours in early January, 1983 I saw lights on a distant mountain in the shape of a cross. Something touched me by it, deep in my heart.

That was almost 30 years ago, but the cross hasn't changed. I've seen it may times since then. I remember seeing in the mid-80's going and coming from Winter Park on Sunday ski days.  And, just a month ago I was taking my brother-in-law to Denver International Airport. Traveling west on I-70, east of the city, in the wee hours of the morning, I could see the cross from well over 50 miles away.

Denver has been a special place for me. That first visit on a skiing vacation back in 1983 was the awakening of a new wonder for me – the wonder of the Rocky Mountains – a wonder that has never faded. Denver was the mountain gateway, forever associated with amazing canyons, ski resorts and passes that have become legendary in my own mind. With nostalgia clear as crystal, I can see the highways, hotels, and restaurants (yes, we visited Casa Bonita) we patronized on those early trips. I can still remember walking through the old Stapleton airport with the huge ski bags headed for the car rental counter with my family, eager to get out of Denver and “up the hill.” I remember leaving Denver via automobile at the end of our vacation, turned around in the back seat watching with discouragement as the mountains faded into the haze as we rushed northeast on I-76, already plotting for when I could return again.

The significance of Denver changed for me about three years ago. An organization with headquarters in Denver – south Downing street to be exact – hired me to be the Senior pastor of one of its constituent congregations in Colorado Springs in 2005. After three years of ministry there, in early 2008, the corporate leaders of that organization suddenly pulled the plug on my assignment and started sending me to different “Siberian” churches of the state each week to preach.

Through that experience, Denver rapidly became a whole different story. I came to remember restaurants, not with anticipation of joy and fun, but as places where pages of false accusations were shoved across a table to me in a blindsided move by individuals who had promised to support me. I came to remember committee rooms as places where people who I thought were friends and mentors, scowled at me with indecipherable malice in a communist-style punishment that didn't fit the “crime”. I came to remember offices where those corporate leaders demanded apologies from myself and my wife for petty mistakes, only to sit there silently when I asked for help to deal with troubling situations.

I left that organization to its own issues in the spring of 2008. But since then I've noticed that the drive through Denver is mixed with the recollection of the faces and events that brought significant grief to my experience. Each time I pass beneath the Downing street bridge on I-25 I remember for a moment those hallways, offices and conference rooms where so much pain and shock was experienced.

But last Thursday night I saw the cross again. We were passing through on I-25 headed to a celebration of my daughter's 14th birthday. It was the first time my family had noticed the cross. First lit for Easter in 1964, the 393 feet high and 254 feet across cross at the Mount Lindo Cemetery has been a beacon for many in Denver for almost 47 years. When my wife and daughter both made comments about it, a profound truth suddenly struck me.

There is a Cross that overlooks my Denver experience. There is a God who has given everything to heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, release prisoners and to comfort all who mourn. There is a God behind that Cross who can restore and redeem the serendipitous joy Denver once meant to me.

Denver won't be the same for me any more. The memories of pain will be helpless against the reality of transformation God is doing in my life. Denver will forever be a place where God's grace has triumphed over human agendas.

I look forward to my next trip to Denver. Whether it's day or night, I plan to think about the Cross. I plan to think about the efforts my Father has made to rescue, restore and redeem me. I plan to make that drive through Denver a forever monument to His grace and a reminder to take courage in what He can do.