Thought for the Week: The true meaning and value for Christians of the Cross

​Danish friends of his contacted him to ask for a minor favour. Their teenage son and daughter were travelling to the south of England to meet longstanding pen pals and would he meet them at Heathrow airport in London and before taking them to the appropriate train station for their journey south, show them some of London's famous sights.

Levin met the youths and found them all glued up as to London's famous sights and he enjoyed their company immensely.

They saw Buckingham Palace, the House of Commons, the National Portrait Gallery, and , of course, the River Thames.

As a final treat Levin took them to Trafalgar Square. Here, Bernard launched into rhetoric about Horatio Nelson and his wounded eye and the defeat of Napoleon. The Danish children looked at him in amazement and confusion, totally unaware of this story.

After getting the couple on the right train, Levin reflected on their few hours together and then it struck him; where was Nelson when he put the spy glass to his wounded eye? At the Battle of Copenhagen. That story had been soft pedalled in Danish education. What to England was a a delight, to the Danish it was a detestation.

The same can be said of the cross of Christ. "The offence of the cross" is a Pauline phrase. What to Greeks was foolishness and to Jews a stumbling block, is for Christians the power and wisdom of God.

For the lighthearted and the unconcerned, the cross must be repulsive, irrelevant, unwanted, a stark reminder of all the darker side of life from which some modern people resolutely turn away. To the crowd it is still folly. But for others, serious thoughts and dark experiences have sharpened understanding.