Rev. Jane-Elizabeth Brakhage Presents
'Spiritual Discipline'
Rev. Jane-Elizabeth Brakhage, Missouri West Conference UMC
(a good friend of Rev. Michael Lee Burgess, shared with permission).
What Is The Christian Symbol
If someone asked you, what is the Christian symbol, what would you answer?
Which symbol would you pick? Would it be the chalice? Would it be a lamb? A fish?
A loaf of broken bread? It could be any of these, but the symbol most people recognize
and identify as Christian is the cross. But do we really know what the cross means?
Are we too far removed from the crucifixion of Jesus to really grasp the meaning of the cross?
We may be.
Today, if we were to update the symbol of the cross, what would its modern equivalent be?
One author that I read this month suggested that the early Christians using the cross as
their symbol was like a Christian group today deciding to use the electric chair as its symbol.
"Think of what it would be like to see an image of an electric chair on top of their meeting
places or as jewelry hanging around their necks." How would you feel about that?
And yet that is essentially what early Christians did by adopting the cross as one of
their symbols. The cross was a symbol of shame and death, and yet the Christians made it their own.
No wonder the Jews had trouble believing that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.
He was killed on a tree after all and Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says, "When someone is convicted
of a crime punishable by death and is executed and you hang him on a tree his corpse must
not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a
tree is under God's curse."
That is why Paul calls the crucifixion a stumbling block to the Jews in his 1st letter to the
Corinthians, for how can anyone who is cursed by God be the Son of God?
Today, few Christians find the cross offensive even though it was a form of torture and
punishment. It is a reminder to us of what Christ had to endure for our salvation.
One reason the cross might not be offensive to us now is that we know the rest of the story.
We know that things did not end with the cross, but with an empty tomb.
Death, no matter how violent, could not keep Christ in the grave. God had the last word.
And it is in that last word that we have our hope.
If Christ rose from the dead, we have the that promise if we live in Christ now we also
will rise with him on the last day.
The cross is an excellent example of how God can take even the cruelest forms of punishment
that humans can design and turn them into means through which to work His Grace.
When we see a cross, let us remember that Christ died for us and also that His death was
not the last word, His resurrection was.
Until next time, may the peace and grace of Christ be with you always.
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