Have you ever gone into a jewelry store to be shown a necklace with a miniature electric chair hanging from it? Of course not. How about a charm bracelet featuring a hangman’s noose? No way, right? Then why do many people proudly wear cross necklaces and bracelets, tee shirts with images of the cross, or even use crosses as wall decorations in their homes?
More than 2,000 years ago someone had the brilliant idea (not really) to invent crucifixion, perhaps the most heinous, excruciating form of death ever conceived. In Jesus Christ’s day, seeing criminals being executed by nailing them to a cross wasn’t unusual – just cruel. Not only was it painful beyond imagining, but it also was humiliating and dehumanizing.
Witnesses probably regarded many of the people crucified as deserving of that fate, but Jesus wasn’t. Even Pontius Pilate, the one who had to authorize Jesus’s crucifixion, stated, “I find no basis for a charge against Him” (John 18:38). But the Lord’s death was foreordained, not because He had ever done anything wrong – which He hadn’t – but because there was no other way for God to accomplish once-for-all atonement for the countless sins of mankind.
The Israelites understood this from the Torah – which now is part of the Bible’s Old Testament. As God told Moses in instituting ritual animal sacrifices, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).
Long before false charges were brought against Jesus to justify His crucifixion, He understood the shedding of His own blood was the ultimate reason He came to earth in human form. Just hours before going through His mock trial on false charges, being cruelly scourged and mocked, and then crucified, Jesus had shared the Passover meal with His disciples. Using the traditional cup of wine symbolically, He told them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
By willingly dying for us on the cross, He transformed the instrument of the most diabolical form of execution into God’s glorious mechanism for forgiveness, freedom from sin and guilt, and the promise of eternal life.
An electric chair, a noose, even a syringe for transporting lethal poison will always signify death. No one in their right mind wants to wear symbols of those around their neck, on a bracelet or displayed on a shirt. But through Jesus’ sacrificial, atoning death on the cross, it now serves as a symbol of hope, standing for God’s incredible love, grace and mercy.
Some Christian denominations continue to display the crucifix, which bears the image of Jesus on the cross. But for most evangelical congregations, the cross is shown as empty because we know Christ is no longer on the cross. And the tomb in which His body was laid also is empty. As the angel told the women who had gone to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, “He is not here; He has risen, just as He said…” (Matthew 28:6).
Because of that, millions around the world proudly wear crosses to declare their faith in Jesus Christ, knowing His death, burial and resurrection forever transformed the cross into a representation of forgiveness, redemption and rebirth.
The words of 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 ask and answer, “‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The unsurpassed example of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat and despair.
Speaking to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the Jewish ruling council, Jesus drew a parallel to an event that took place while the Jews were wandering in the desert thousands of years earlier: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). The key words are, “everyone who believes in Him.”
The Lord proceeded to utter perhaps the most profound and revolutionary words ever spoken. He told the Jewish leader, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life…. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:16-18).
For many of us, the cross does not remind us of tragedy; it serves as the symbol of God’s unfathomable love for His creation, His substitutionary payment for our sins – for all who are willing to receive this greatest gift of all. As Jesus declared on the cross with His last breath, “It is finished” (John 19:30). He used a Greek word, tetelestai, which literally means, “paid in full.”
This closing weekend of Holy Week is bittersweet, commemorating Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins but also celebrating His resurrection. As someone has said, He died a death He did not deserve to pay a debt He did not owe, a debt we could not pay – to redeem us and offer us the gift of eternal life.
A well-known hymn, “Hallelujah, What a Savior,” says it so well:
“‘Man of Sorrows’ what a name
For the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim
Hallelujah, what a Savior….”
Indeed. What a Savior!
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