So I’ll Cherish The Old Rugged Cross
“The very word ‘cross’ should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears.”-(Cicero, Pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo 16)
“Everything about the practice of nailing a man to a cross – a ‘crux’ – was repellent… It was this disgust that crucifixion uniquely inspired…”-Holland, Dominion (7)
Jesus said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross (execution stake) and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”— Mark 8:34–35
“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”–Colossians 2:15
“A new sort of power will be let loose upon the world, and it will be the power of self-giving love. This is the heart of the revolution that was launched on Good Friday.”-N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began:
Tom Holland’s text, Dominion, is a powerful reminder of the way that the cross of Jesus has transformed Western culture and our values on compassion, justice, and dignity. It can be easy to forget how despised the concept of humility was in the Roman Empire, and Holland’s book draws out this contrast. In Roman Culture, humilitas meant failure and lowliness, things to be avoided at all costs. It brought shame on yourself, your family, and your community. Thus, the method of execution by crucifixion was particularly shameful and used as a punishment for rebels in the Empire.
But the death of Jesus and the early Christians transformed and laid the groundwork for the reversal of humilitas as something to be embraced and not scorned. The early Christians pursued service, not status, humility instead of authority, all shaped by the power of the cross.
Holland’s book Dominion overviews the many ways in which Christianity provided the roots and foundation of the Western world. Even with all of its faults and failings, Holland reminds us that the values of Christ are still at the foundation of the Western World. The power of the cross is worthy of reclaiming in a world that still seeks after power and status today.
But what was most interesting to me in Holland’s book was his story of South Africa and the apartheid movement. I was drawn to this, of course, because of our upcoming visit to South Africa and was fascinated by his assessment of how the Gospel that was brought by colonizers would ultimately be the undoing of apartheid. Holland states, “The same faith that had inspired Afrikaners to imagine themselves a chosen people was also, in the long run, what had doomed their supremacy…it was Christianity that had provided the colonised and the enslaved with their surest voice. The paradox was profound.” (487-488).
The point I am trying to make by connecting these concepts in Holland is this: the same paradox that undid Rome also undid apartheid — the cross always unravels human systems of domination. The very gospel once wielded to justify power became the cry of the oppressed, because the cross never serves empire for long — it always topples it. It is fascinating to me how empires and kingdoms throughout the Western world have wielded the Gospel to attempt to subjugate and enslave people groups through religious indoctrination and abuse. This is emphatically wrong. But the Gospel continues to persist, undoing the very thing that the oppressor thinks they are wielding it for.
The cross stands as the greatest transformative moment in human history. It is the day the revolution began. When Rome used it as a force for shame, God used it to save the world. Instead of a symbol of intimidation, it is now a symbol of liberation. Holland helps us see that this paradox has not only shaped the church but has reverberated through centuries, unraveling systems of domination from Caesar’s empire to apartheid South Africa.
The scandal of the cross is that it cannot be contained or co-opted for long. When pressed into the service of power, it eventually turns against its captors. When dismissed as weakness, it reemerges as the deepest kind of strength. The very thing Cicero called unthinkable has become, in Christ, the unshakable foundation of hope.
This week, an outspoken, conservative influencer was shot on a college campus. The brokenness of our world and the violence that the Enemy uses to divide us is still raging in the Western World. Followers of Jesus have an option to be consumed by hatred, division, rage and bitterness. I think Jesus invites us to pick up the cross, today, and follow Him.
And so we are left with this question: if the cross has undone empires, what might it undo in us?
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