The Hideous, Glorious Cross
For people who are stumbling toward ruin, the message of the cross is nothing but a tall tale for fools by a fool. But for those of us who are already experiencing the reality of being rescued and made right, it is nothing short of God’s power. I Corinthians 1;18 (The Voice, VOICE)
May I never put anything above the cross of our Lord Jesus the Anointed. Through Him, the world has been crucified to me and I to this world. Galatians 6:14 (The Voice, VOICE)
Now stay focused on Jesus, who designed and perfected our faith. He endured the cross and ignored the shame of that death because He focused on the joy that was set before Him; and now He is seated beside God on the throne, a place of honor. Hebrews 12:2 (The Voice, VOICE)
The cross of Christ is a contradiction. On one hand it is an object of hideous, grotesque torture. On the other hand it is a thing of beauty.
It was the cruelest and most sadistic form of death. Men were hung on the cross completely naked by massive spikes driven through their wrists and the bones of their feet. They died a slow, agonizing death of their bones being pulled out of joint, their lungs collapsing and filling with fluid, and the tremendous loss of blood. The cross represented total shame and complete pain. In Roman times, you would not wish for your worst enemy to be crucified, so gruesome and hideous was the experience.
As men hung upon the cross, they began to slip and they had to push themselves up by the nails in their feet to allow themselves to breathe. Eventually their shoulders and other joints were pulled out of joint, making breathing even more difficult, nearly impossible. This meant they had to push up on their feet harder and more frequently. Eventually they weakened enough that they could not longer push up, and they died of asphyxiation. Those who managed to cling to life for any amount of time had their legs broken to make it even more difficult to push up, and death then came. The death of the cross was horrible.
Today, the cross is revered by many as a beautiful thing. Although it represented the most brutal death, it is the means by which our salvation was purchased. To some it is difficult to understand how such a disgusting tool of death could be honored and cherished. However, to those of us who have received its deliverance from sin and death, it is the most attractive thing on earth. The cross of our Lord is lovely; the symbol of ultimate love and sacrifice.
For those who wear the cross as a fashion statement and no more- you are missing the point. To display the beautiful cross of our Lord Jesus Christ on your person should be an act of honoring the One who paid for your life with His own. The cross is something we should love and show to others as a symbol of our lives being changed by the sacrificial death of our loving God. The hideous, glorious cross is our reminder that our Lord loves us more than life.
