I recently learned something about the cross, and it got me thinking.  (You’re wondering what doesn’t get me thinking, aren’t you?)J

In 2013, at least in the Bible belt where I reside, the cross is all over the place.  People have them hanging in their houses, stuck to the back of their cars, on their belt buckles.  They can be found on thank-you cards and picture frames and decorative plates, on cell phone covers and t-shirts and coffee mugs, on women’s earrings and necklaces and bracelets. The cross is a mainstream symbol these days – an instant declaration of one’s choice to follow Jesus.

But back in Jesus’ day . . . you know, when travelling by donkey and eating locusts weren’t quite so taboo . . . the cross was not a go-to decorative object.  For the people that lived two-thousand years ago, a cross had no positive connotation whatsoever.  It would be like someone showing up for a girls’ night out wearing a vile of poison around their necks, or hanging an electric chair on the wall in their foyer, or writing in a notepad with a noose on the cover.  Are you feeling me here, folks?  When Jesus was alive, the cross was a tool of destruction used to crucify people who had committed crimes.  When Jesus was alive, the cross was ugly.  

Interesting, isn’t it, that before Jesus became a Savior, he was a carpenter.  Carpenters take trees and make them into dining room tables that cost thousands of dollars (on clearance) at Restoration Hardware.  Carpenters take trees and make them into chairs and cabinets and beds and houses.  Carpenters take uninteresting pieces of wood, plain and primitive, and turn them into masterpieces of all kinds. 

And Jesus . . . Jesus took the cross, something dark and dirty and disgusting . . . and made it beautiful.   

Don’t you think He can do the same to you and me?