Most civilized people would consider it morbid to wear jewelry or clothing that displays the likeness of a hangman’s noose, an electric chair, or a guillotine.
Yet millions display the most cruel form of Roman execution around their necks or on the tops of their houses of worship. And within the next 24 hours even more will remember the day, and the way Jesus was mocked by his countrymen, tortured, and nailed to a tree by a Roman death squad.
Yet even as we try to reflect on the significance of that event, I struggle to let it sink in. As awful as it sounds, I’m guessing that I might be more emotionally moved if, during the same time period, I had the misfortune of seeing someone’s pet hit by a car and suffering by the side of the road.
Am not wishing to be gruesome or melodramatic. Just want to be able to sense that nothing means more to our personal safety and future than our acceptance of– and reliance upon–the inexpressibly terrible/wonderful event of the cross.
Wish we could take the next day or so to compare notes on what the death of the King of kings means to us personally…