From the Old Rugged Cross

The voices of the "incensed crowd" reached an absolute crescendo. They yelled and screamed, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" The ghastly instrument of crucifixion was a dreadfully slow and excruciating death on a Roman cross.

The Romans, ruthless and violent, were famous for their crosses. They had devised crosses of all shapes and sizes and designs to prolong the suffering and pain.

The type of cross used in Israel at the time of Christ was like the capital letter "T." The horizontal cross-beam had a notch over which the vertical post was placed. The vertical post was permanently imbedded in the ground. The condemned were required to carry their horizontal beam alone, from the Praetorian to the crucifixion site.

Now this is a little bit different from what’s seen in the movie "The Passion." Why? Mel Gibson has said in interviews on the making of "The Passion of the Christ" that he went to  great lengths to keep the images in the film consistent with those depicted in the great paintings and sculptures of the Middle Ages. These are the images that have formed in the minds  of Christians for centuries. I admire him for this, for had he presented the scenes of Christ on a capital "T" cross (technically more accurate), it would have looked wrong to us, and the impact of the movie would have been reduced.

Jesus and the two convicted criminals dying at once would be quite a spectacle for the Passover crowds. The gruesome and grim picture of three crosses, blackened with human blood, standing stark against the eastern sky, would leave a powerful imprint upon the minds of thousands who might consider some sin against Rome. They would never forget the Cross.

Think about it for a moment objectively. It’s absolutely incredible that Christians, 2,000 years after an event, gather weekly at the foot of the cross. If we could observe a company of worshippers singing songs in praise of the gas chamber, we would call such praise brutal. If we discovered men and women bowing down before a hangman’s noose and clutching it with love, we’d call that kind of adoration savage. Suppose you walked up to someone and they wore a miniature electric chair around their neck, we’d call that conduct barbaric.

Yet we (without batting an eye) worship beneath, sing about, and wear cross jewelry, the symbol of as awful an instrument of torture and death as the mind of man has ever conceived.

What has changed this awful symbol of brutality, suffering and death into an object of reverence, love and worship so that our very churches are designed around a cross? The answer is found in the significance of what happened that day.

Even in the midst of the cruelty, Jesus never whimpered. He never begged for mercy, never pled for release. The crazed mob might crush His body, but they could never break His spirit. Men, women and children whose lives He had touched and transformed watched from a distance. Deeply moved at His plight, some of His followers broke into tears and muffled their groans of agony, as they moved to Golgotha.

The crowd below the cross shouted until they were hoarse. The noise was so great that only a few of them standing near the base of the cross heard what Jesus said when His lips moved in prayer. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

A more incredible cry has never come from any lips.

Instead of anger or vengeance there was love and forgiveness. Jesus points us to a starting place in dealing with the hurt that people inflict on our lives, and that starting place is in realizing that people often don’t know what they’re doing.

That probably isn’t the way many of us feel about hurtful situations. We tend to see things from our selfish viewpoints. When bad things happen to us, we tend to feel that whoever did us wrong knew exactly what they were doing and didn’t care.

If you or I were on the Cross, we probably would have seen it that way. Jesus asks if we want to overcome adversity: "Forgive all those who are trying to ruin your life." But people want to do it "their way."

But we can choose to forgive. Lack of forgiveness only hurts the one who won’t forgive.

A friend of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, once reminded her of an especially cruel thing that had been done to her years before. Miss Barton seemed not to recall it.

"Don’t you remember it?" her friend asked. "No," came the reply, "I distinctly remember forgetting it." From the cross Jesus says, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

Forgive anyone and everyone who’s tried or is trying to ruin your life. Why? Because true forgiveness is born from gratitude to God, because He forgave us, even when we didn’t know what we were doing. That’s why tomorrow, a day of a terrible atrocity, is called "Good Friday."

  Jon Wilson lives in Calabasas and is senior pastor of Canoga Park Presbyterian Church at 22103 Vanowen. Hear him speak on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. or contact him at Jonwclergy@aol.com.