Redeeming the Cross

I grew up under the shadow of crosses. They decorated churches, Bibles, necklaces, and were portrayed in hymns, sermons, and evangelistic meetings. None of that, however, really presents what I have come to understand as the meaning and significance of the cross in the New Testament writings.

All those bronze, brass, iron, silver, gold, and wooden crosses have much more to do with how Constantine wielded the cross than anything written by Paul or spoken by Jesus. Constantine reported a vision in which he saw a cross of light and heard “in hoc signo vinces.” The vision was that under this sign (IHS), he should and would send out his conquering armies to victory. He was taking something referred to in Christianity and wielding it as a symbol of military might, of domination, of torture, of death, and of subjection and sending his troops to march under that sign of Rome’s Empire.

The cross goes back to the Greeks, who used it for their enemies. The Romans took the cross as they took many other things from the Greeks, and had wielded it for hundreds of years as an implement of torture and death. Constantine’s use of the cross carried this message of dominating power, coercion, and threat to all opposition. It was from that usage of the cross that it became a dominant symbol of Christianity as he brought the church into the power structures of his empire.

For Jesus and Paul, the cross carried a rather different message. They associated it with shame and reproach, of suffering the brunt of political power, of being deemed enemies of the state, of being stripped of any position or symbol of power and placed in a position of humiliation and powerlessness against Rome’s superior force. The viewed the cross from a place of oppression, their own oppression.

The cross meant that Jesus was no political leader. It meant that Jesus led no powerful armies against the enemies of God, the people, or the state. It deemed him a threat to political power. It marked him as a bug squashed under the foot of Rome’s generals and soldiers. It made him as one more insignificant bit of filth for Rome to discard.

That’s why Paul calls the cross a stumbling block and foolishness. How can Jesus be Messiah and be subjected to the humiliation of a cross? How can Jesus be Lord if he allowed Caesar’s minions to mistreat him so? How can this be God Almighty? God should be punishing all those who would dare do this to the Son, or even to a prophet! The cross looked for all purposes like the end of the road, casting reproach on Jesus and any who would follow him.

When Jesus told his disciples to take up their own crosses and follow him, it was no remark about a piece of jewelry to adorn their clothing. It was not as any symbol of power. It was about accepting that Jesus was leading them into the fray against the political powers of the world around them. It was embracing that to follow Jesus was subversive, revolutionary, and that it would get them killed. Following Jesus is not something the world powers would want them to do. They would have to accept the humiliation of being treated as human garbage by those who could not understand God’s love.

I still wear a cross. Which meaning it will communicate depends on what I do with the rest of my life, my words, my actions. Do I wear it as a conquering Roman or Crusader, or do I wear it with the understanding that my life is forfeit as I follow Jesus? The cross was a death sentence for Jesus and his disciples. If we can own it as our own death sentence, perhaps the cross can be redeemed.

— ©Copyright 2024, Christopher B. Harbin 

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