DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
Hey, That Cross is Offensive
GOOD FRIDAY, LENT DAY 39 of 40, © NaimaLett.com/blog

Celebrity cross tattoos: Justin Timberlake, Angelina Jolie, Colin Ferrell, Mary J. Blige, Christopher Meloni, Alyssa Milano

Hey, that cross is offensive.
It was 2,000 years ago.
It still is today.

We try to beautify it.
Diamond-bling it around our neck.
Stain-glass it at church.
Celebrity-tattoo it across our body.

But that’s like putting perfume on fertilizer. No amount of Unforgivable by Sean John or Glow by J.Lo can drown the stench of manure. So it is with that cross. It ain’t pretty.

Cross Offensive

Most medieval-type paintings portray a comely, fairly clean, malnutrition-looking Jesus gently placed on that cross. That’s not how it went down. Jesus was a bloody mess – flesh ripped, temples busted, blood coming down his face. He had been beaten and whipped and nailed.

Mel Gibson has gotten a lot of things wrong, but he got right that flogging scene in The Passion of the Christ. I’ve only been able to sit through it once. There’s no way that I could re-live that again and again. I feel the lashes. I smell the blood. It’s visceral. It’s offensive.

Why?

Because Jesus, God’s Son, who is perfect in every way and lived a completely sinless life, should’ve never allowed Himself to be humiliated and painfully murdered on that cross. But He did. Because there was no other way to get things right between us, the creation who is born sinful, and our Creator, who is sinless. God made Him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become righteous. 2 Corinthians 5:21. That’s our whole gospel. That’s the Good News. We have eternal life because the God-Man conquered death for us.

Jesus is the only One who could die in our stead. I believe He choose something as ugly as that cross because it symbolizes the death within us that He obliterated.

Crossed Up

So the next time we see Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige and Angelina Jolie posing sexily highlighting the crosses inked to their bodies, remember the One whose body was ripped to shreds to redeem them and us.

Thank God death is not the end of the story. Hebrews 12:2 says that we “fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” We can endure the offense of that cross because of the reward that awaits us.

Good Friday

Nothing that happened on “Good” Friday was good, but Hallelujah for Easter morn! There is an empty tomb because Jesus did exactly what He said He would do: He arose! Easter is coming, Fam! All offenses are retired on Easter, and we will shake the heavens with praise for a Savior who is alive.

He is Risen.
He is Risen, indeed,
Naima

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