THE OLD RUGGED CROSS
Many years ago, when I was a little boy attending vacation Bible school at our church, I received a bookmark in the shape of a cross. The cross was yellow, and was brightly adorned with flowers and plenty of sunshine. I guarded that bookmark carefully. For many years, I kept it tucked away in the old blue King James Bible that I believe my parents gave me. As a little boy, I found that little yellow cross fascinating. To me, the flowery imagery displayed on the bookmark was strangely peculiar. At our church, we occasionally watched films depicting the horrors of Hell or the treachery of the crucifixion.
Some of the imagery of Hell presented in these movies is still ingrained in my mind. I will spare you the grotesque images that I recall concerning Hell, but these images made sense to me. The Devil is wicked. His dark angels are damned. Hell is a terrible place; therefore, the imagery fit nicely in my childish imagination. How biblically accurate these movies were, I have no idea. But what I do know is that Hell is eternal torture that we shouldn’t sugarcoat. The depictions of Hell on my Sunday school sheet matched what I saw in the films. But when it came to the visuals representing the crucifixion, I was a bit perplexed.
While I understood the imagery of Hell in these movies, I had a more difficult time processing how Christ’s torturous crucifixion lined up with my cute Sunday school coloring pages and my pretty yellow bookmark. I remember going out to the garage where my father kept his tools and such. I pulled out a box of long nails, and tried to imagine them being driven into my hands and feet. Combined with the thought of a sword piercing my side, I was left squirming in my skin. When I saw pictures of Jesus with thick red blood running down his face from the thorns pressed into his forehead, I was pretty sure that I could taste the blood in my mouth. Perhaps I was way too contemplative as a child, but for the life of me, I could not reconcile what I imagined the crucifixion to be like with the dainty bookmark given to me by my Bible school teacher.
Think with me for a moment. One of the most recognizable images in the world is that of a man hanging grotesquely on a wooden cross with stakes driven through his hands and feet. The cross is arguably the most revered image in human history. And yet it depicts one of the cruelest and most inhuman means of execution known to mankind. A person was beaten to the point of exhaustion. Ridiculed by being mocked and spit upon. Hung on a splinter-infested cross, and left in the sun to slowly suffocate and die. How does that description coincide with my little yellow bookmark? Nonetheless, crosses and crucifixes hang in churches, homes, around people’s necks, from their ears, and from their rearview mirrors.
On a trip to Mexico City, Michelle and I, along with a group of teenagers, visited a museum dedicated to the history of torture used during in the Inquisition. Inside the museum, exhibits presented the debased and overwhelmingly gory details of the human art of torture. Some of the people in our group, my wife being one of them, found the museum to be too gruesome to digest. Feeling nauseated by the gruesome displays of violence, these individuals went outside to wait for those who wanted to complete the tour.
As we consider the death of Jesus, we are forced to ask ourselves many questions. Why would the image of such a cruel death be so popular? Would you not think it odd if people readily wore a guillotine, an electric chair, or an iron maiden around their necks? What is so unique about the crucifixion of Jesus that sets His means of execution apart from all others? Why do we not revere the death of other religious leaders in the same manner?
Personally, I find Paul’s instruction on the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:26 to be profoundly interesting. He writes, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” I have placed an emphasis on the word death for a reason. It is the resurrection of Jesus that demonstrated His deity. It is the resurrection in which we find hope of redemption. And yet, Paul says we are to remember the death of Jesus when we observe the Lord’s Supper. Why should we remember His death? What sets the death of Jesus Christ apart from every other execution that has taken place in thousands of years of human history?
As always, our answer is found in Scripture. In Matthew 16:21 we read, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” In the gospel of John we read Jesus’s words when He said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die (John 12:32-33). In Luke 24:46-47, Jesus taught, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
From a biblical perspective, the death of Jesus is set apart from all other deaths. It was through the crucifixion of Jesus that the penalty for our sins was paid in full. God so loved this fallen world that on the cruel cross of Calvary, He gave His only Son to be the final Passover Lamb. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, willingly laid down His life for the flock so that we might live. His sacrificial death was necessary. Without His death, we would be without any hope of redemption. Only through His death could there be forgiveness of sin and deliverance from the eternal horrors of Hell. God used an instrument of unspeakable torture to demonstrate His unfathomable grace and mercy to sinners like you and me. For that, we must live with unrelenting thanksgiving.
Today, when I think about that flowery cross bookmark, I can finally reconcile the imagery in my mind. Yes, I remember the death of Jesus and all of its brutality. May we never forget what Jesus suffered on our behalf. But when I think about the cross, I am also reminded of the redemptive purpose for His grisly death. I sent Jesus to that cross, and so did you. He died so that we might live through the power of His sacrificial death. So please don’t throw out all of your yellow, purple, and pink crosses – you don’t even have to throw away the ones with flowers on them – but don’t be fooled by their daintiness. There was nothing dainty about the crucifixion. There was, however, something extraordinarily beautiful that took place on Golgotha. It was through Jesus’s sacrificial death that the penalty for our sin was paid. The consequences and punishment that we deserved was taken upon the perfect Lamb of God in our stead. I would argue that this beautiful truth is worthy of a few pretty flowers on my cross-shaped bookmark.