A Wondrous Attraction for Me
“The Wood Between the Worlds” (By Brian Zahnd)
Chapter 7: A Grotesque Beauty
“At the cross we find the ugliness of human sin, but we also find the beauty of divine love - the beauty that saves the world.” (Zahnd, p. 68)
If all Zahnd wrote for this book was chapter 7, it would have been enough for me. Chapter 7 was worth the price of the whole book.
As Protestants, when we think of the cross, most of the time it is just two intersecting lines that have been cleaned up of any splinters, dents, dirt, sweat and blood.
How easy it is to forget that the cross was a tool of execution used by the Roman Empire to utterly humiliate their enemies and assert their dominance?
It is indeed a strange phenomenon that an ancient tool of public execution has become synonymous with a religious movement.
To have been there on that day, to be a face in the crowd, whether you knew Jesus or not, and to watch the whole thing from the mocking, to the beating, the whipping, the stripping, the parade through the streets, and finally to the securing of the body to a wooden structure with nails through the wrists and feet - would have been horrendous.
A few years ago, some Al Qaeda militants captured some Christians and released videos of beheading them after they refused to recant their faith. The videos were released before the current era of Social Media platforms that would immediately tag and ban the videos before being published.
Just looking at still photos of the masked militants with their machetes getting ready to behead their prisoners makes me sick to this day.
In her book, “The Crucifixion,” Fleming Rutledge writes…
“The cross is irreligious because no human being individually or human beings collectively would have projected their hopes, wishes, longings, and needs onto a crucified man.” (p. 75)
We are so far removed from the era of public crucifixions that we just don’t understand how scandalous it was for someone who claimed to be the Messiah to be killed on a Roman cross.
The Romans had many ways to kill people, but they reserved crucifixion for the lowest of low - for slaves, outcasts, and the those who didn’t matter enough to be killed by beheading or some other quick execution.
Rutledge writes, “Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central focus the suffering and degradation of its God. The crucifixion is so familiar to us, and so moving, that it is hard to realize how unusual it is as an image of God.” (Rutledge, The Crucifixion, p. 75)
And yet we sing about the cross…
“O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me”
The majority of Protestant churches have a cross prominently displayed somewhere in their building. There is no shortage of crucifixes in Catholic and Orthodox churches worldwide.
How did something so ugly become an object of beauty and admiration?
Zahnd writes…
“The transformation of the Roman cross from an abhorrent symbol of death into a beautiful symbol of love is a testament to the redeeming power of Christ. If the cross can be saved, the world can be saved. If the crucifixion can be made beautiful, all things can be made beautiful. The hope we have for the healing of a world marred by sin and death is that God makes all things beautiful in his time (Eccl. 3:11).” (p. 68)
The cross is beautiful because it conveys Good News to the world. Paul the Apostle writes, “God demonstrated his love for us in this way, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom, 5:8).
This message is compelling, and it is what changes hearts. There is nothing in this world more beautiful than sacrificial love - and Jesus went first.
Sadly, there is a disconnect for some Christians who only look to the cross as something that benefits them personally, instead of seeing the cross as a summons to walk in Jesus’ footsteps.
Some Christians use the message of the cross to beat people up with guilt and shame instead of looking to the cross as a model for how we ought to serve our neighbors - not looking to our own interests.
I love Zahnd’s words at the close of the chapter…
“The cruciform is to be our posture within the world. We are to be present in society, not with the clenched fist of anger, not with the wagging finger of shame, not with the pointing finger of accusation, but with arms outstretched in imitation of our crucified Lord. When we become angry and arrogant accusers, we become ugly. We take on the hideous form of satan. But when we enact cruciform love, when we ‘Put on the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 13:14), we begin to reflect his beauty into the world. To the extent that our posture is cruciform is the extent to which we possess the attractive nature of Christ.” (p. 71)
Behold the cross, in all its scandal, in all its gore, in all its shame… take it in…don’t try to sanitize it.
Jesus says to you… “aint’ no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from you!”
Paul the Apostle said it this way…
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-35, 37-39)
That’s beautiful ain’t it?!
Amen, and Amen!