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What if you walked into a friend's house one day and saw a picture of an electric chair prominently displayed in the living room? Or, going through the checkout line, you noticed a miniature guillotine hanging from a chain around the cashier's neck? Even stranger, what if your friend and the cashier spoke about these symbols with reverence, respect, and even affection? Wouldn't it make you uncomfortable?
In the early years of the church, Christian veneration of the cross must have seemed no less odd to those who had not embraced the gospel. And even for Jesus’ first followers, the surprise may have never worn off: Who could have imagined it? An instrument of execution is the way to everlasting life!
But this is the way God chose to redeem us, by making the greatest evil into the source of the greatest good. The deepest sorrow has given way to the greatest joy. As the prophet said: “Who would believe what we have heard? … Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed” (Isaiah 53:1,5).
Today, however, the cross has become so familiar to us that we sometimes need to be reminded of the awesome paradox it represents.…
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