The Electric Chair

My friend Andy found himself sitting beside a girl at the Jazz and Blues Society event in Birmingham University. He noticed she was wearing a necklace with a little cross. “I see you’re wearing a little cross”, he remarked. “Have you thought of maybe a little electric chair?” 

“A what?!” the startled blues fan replied. “Whatever for?” The redoubtable Andy explained that the cross was a particularly nasty method of Roman execution – like, say, hanging or the electric chair or lethal injection. The comparison is not as far-fetched as you might imagine. In the early 1970s Alice Cooper featured an electric chair in his “Shock Rock” touring show (go on, look it up). 

Andy had a point. Why is the culture gone mad about crosses when they represent such an ugly thing? And it’s not just necklace crosses. They erect them on the top of buildings. I can see three from our back bedroom window. When people began to fly drones, they got some amazing views of “cruciform” buildings – in the shape of enormous crosses – for example, all the cathedrals. 

When the cowboy dies in a Wild West movie, a bell tolls and the edit cuts to a shot of his grave – with a cross on it!

Just think of how many countries have put a cross on their flag. I’m not sure if their citizens realise that they’ve got an execution signal up there waving in the breeze. It might appear as an ill-conceived idea if they gave it a minute’s thought. 

Over a third of the Gospel records are about the events surrounding the cross. 

Big deal question number one: How long has this been going on? When did this ubiquitous appearance of crosses get started? 

It turns out that the cross became a Christian symbol more or less right away after Jesus – it was used in the 2nd Century. By the end of that second century, Tertullian, the leading North African Christian author, had to address the criticism that Christians were “adorers of the gallows” in his book De Corona. Writers wrote about the cross so much that they even developed a little Greek shorthand sign for it like this “⳨”. 

Big deal question number two: Didn’t people know very well that it was a shameful symbol of a criminal?

They did. In fact, the Romans reserved crucifixion for insurrectionists. 

Big deal question number three: So why would anybody want to celebrate such an ignominious loss of life?

You know, and I know, and the dogs in the street know, that Jesus wasn’t a militant dissident. Pontius Pilate tried to find why Jesus had suddenly been dragged into his court by his detractors with vague charges, first thing in the morning. He guessed that violence was involved somehow. But Jesus told him that since no coup was being staged, his people weren’t fighting anybody. 

Big deal question number four: So there must be another reason that the cross became so wildly popular. What caused the big switch from “execution symbol” to “must-have logo”?

The actual shape of Jesus’ cross impressed nobody. What did impress them was its significance. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first leader to have a following after he died a martyr’s death. However, Jesus didn’t just die. He was killed. Or, more accurately, he allowed himself to be killed - what he called a “ransom”. 

This is a subject that arose when I was invited to see the North Korean ambassador in London a few years ago. He was coming from the background of an atheistic state. He asked me what motivated me and I said, “I am a devotee of Jesus of Nazareth and I aspire to be like him, as he said himself, ‘I did not come to be served but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.’” 

We talked about ransoms and how they work, like in hijacked planes when a ransom is demanded. Sometimes the hijackers want money but sometimes they want an accomplice to be set free. I explained that this was Jesus’ plan – he would give his life so I could go free. It had come down to him or me.

That’s why the big switch happened. An awful lot of people (me included) were fed up carrying around a load of guilt they’d like to dump. When they heard about Jesus’ ransom idea it was a no-brainer. 

When Mel Gibson was making the film The Passion of the Christ  he got into trouble with some Jewish people because they thought he was blaming Jews for killing Christ. Somebody hadn’t done their history homework. The crucifixion happened because of a perfect storm which Jesus allowed to happen around him. Yes, there were Jews involved – and manipulative religious leaders and Roman soldiers and Judas Iscariot and Pilate (who was sacked about three years later for brutally mismanaging a local armed conflict). There was no one person to pin it on.

Meanwhile, as it was happening, in real time, there was one other person in Jesus’ mind who could benefit. You.