The Cross...Among Other Things

Well, in response to my earlier post, I did NOT get to stay home alone. Dad stayed home, because he was going to go meet mom in Bismarck today. Well, now she's staying til, like, Tuesday, I think. Or something like that. Anyway. So that's the deal there.

Now. *points to title* The Cross. I was thinking about it today. and in a Clubhouse I got like, years ago, there was this fiction article from the view of a Roman soldier, and it was like, how he didn't understand why they held the cross in such high regard, because it was a method of torture. And I was thinking about that, and about how to Christians it has become like, a symbol of salvation. The whole concept sort of interests me.

It's like, not only did Christ triumph over death (which of course is the main thing) but if you read into it a little more, there was so much else that He did. Especially when we think of the cross. If we had lived in that time period, the cross would have been horrible: maybe it would have made you shudder, maybe it would scare you, and I'm sure to criminals, it struck fear in their hearts. It would be an insanely PAINFUL way to die. I can't even imagine.

But to us, it's not a symbol of torture. Like I said, it's a symbol of salvation, of hope, of forgiveness, of freedom. It's sort of a crazy one hundred eighty degree turn, you know? I don't know why that sort of boggled my mind so much, but it did. I think mostly because we never think about what it meant to some people. We only see the Salvation Message. I guess it's sort of interesting to me to think that that's not always what it meant. It used to mean death: Now, to Christians, it means life.

Ironic, right?