Every religion and ideology has certain visual symbols which represent and encapsulate it. I have read that the lotus flower is now particularly associated with Buddhism. This flower is shaped like a wheel and illustrates the Buddhist position that reality is defined as an eternal cycle of birth and death.

Ancient Judaism avoided visual signs and symbols out of respect for the second commandment which forbade the making of any graven image by which to represent or stand for God. But modern Judaism has adopted the so-called Star of David formed by a combination of two equilateral triangles which are said to stand for the covenant God made with David that his throne would be established forever and the Messiah would descend from him.

Islam, the other monotheistic faith that arose in the Middle East is sometimes symbolized by a crescent, a symbol of the sovereignty of God.

Secular ideologies also have their symbols. Marxism had the hammer and cycle to stand for the union of factory worker and field worker and the supremacy of the common man. These symbols still cover many of the buildings and monuments constructed in the former USSR. The Nazi's had the swastika, then a symbol of the Aryan race, now a symbol of unadulterated evil.

Christianity is no exception in having a visual symbol. The very earliest Christian symbols, often painted or carved on tombs of the dead, were the dove and particurly common, the fish. (From ichthys which made the acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.) Pictures of various Biblical stories (Noah's ark, Daniel in the Lion's den, Jonah and the whale, baptism, a shepherd carrying a lamb) were also painted in the catacombs.

But what symbol has become the most common symbol for the Christian faith? It is the symbol of the cross. It seems certain that, at least from the second century onward, Christians not only drew, but also made the sign of the cross on themselves or on others.

Tertullian, the North African lawyer-theologian, about 200 A.D. wrote: At every step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at the table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon our forehead the sign (of the cross) (as quoted by John Stott in The Cross of Christ, p. 21)

Stott continues:

The Christians' choice of a cross as the symbol of our faith is really surprising when one considers the horror with which crucifixion was regarded in the ancient world. We can understand why Paul's 'message of the cross' was to many of his listeners 'foolishness', even 'madness' (1 Cor. 1:18,23). How could any sane person worship as a God a dead man who had been justly condemnd as a criminal and subjected to the most humiliating form of execution? This condemnation of death, crime and shame put him beyond the pale of respect, let alone of worship.

Crucifixion seems to have been invented by 'barbarians' on the edge of the known world, and taken over from them by both Greeks and Romans. It is probably the most cruel method of execution ever practiced, for it deliberately delayed death until maximum torture had been inflicted. The victim could suffer for days before dying. When the Romans adopted it, they reserved it for criminals convicted of murder, rebellion or armed robbery, provided that they were also slaves, foreigners or other non-persons...

Roman citizens were exempt from crucifixion, except in extreme cases of treason. Cicero in one of his speeches condemned it as ... ' a most cruel and disgusting punishment...To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to kill him is almost an act of murder: to crucify him is - What? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed.' (quoted in The Cross of Christ, p. 24)

The early enemies of Christianity thus lost no opportunity to ridicule the claim that God's anointed son and man's savior ended his life on a cross. The idea was simply crazy. We can understand why Paul's "message of the cross" was foolishness to most Gentiles and a real problem for Jews. How could any sane person worship as a god a dead man who has been subjected to the most humiliating form of execution? Why would we worship such a man, let alone even have any respect left for him?

For those in other religions and with other world views, the whole idea of God or the son of God dying on a cross is nuts, a real scandal.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche reflected the views of many when He wrote about the Christian conception of God as a "God of the sick, God as Spider, God as spirit," and the Christian Messiah whom he dismissed as "God On the cross." (as quoted in The Cross of Christ, p. 43)

So why would we who are Christians want to memorialize this aspect of the life of Jesus? Why wouldn't we rather choose to especially commemorate something else about him, say his birth or youth or teachings or service or resurrection or power or the gift of his spirit, and leave the cross only as a sort of unfortunate embarrassing footnote. Why do we so emphasize his death by crucifixion? Why is the cross the abiding symbol of the Christian faith? Why not do everything in our power to hide the memory of this scandal, that the creator of the Christian religion, the one in whom we place all our trust, died indeed by being nailed to a cross? Why make the cross the centerpiece of our faith? After viewing one artist's painting of the crucified Christ, one of Dostoevsky's characters cried out, "Why, that picture might make some people lose their faith."

Why do we cling to the old rugged cross?

Just a few thoughts here:

1. We preach the cross because it is the central message about Jesus who repeatedly spoke to his closest disciples about his death ... Mk. 8:31-32; 9:31; 10:45. Despite the greatness of his teaching and example and all his miracles, none of these were central to his mission of dying for our sins. What dominated his mind was not the living but the giving of his life. This was 'the hour' for which he had come into the world.

   Paul defined the gospel as 'the message of the cross', his ministry as 'we preach Christ crucified', baptism as initiation 'into his death', and the Lord's Supper as a proclamation of his death. And though the cross seemed either foolishness or a stumbling block to the self-righteous, it was in fact the very essence of God's wisdom and power. So he writes to the Corinthians that he preached nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Read 2 Cor. 2:2.
   
   

2. The cross (and only the cross) is the answer to a guilty conscience. Hebrews 9:9, 14; 10:19-21. The message of the cross is irresistible because it is the only message that effectively cleanses the conscience.
   
   
3. There is hope in the message of the cross. What did the world look like the day Jesus died on the cross, the day the son of God dangled from a cross like some kind of ragged scarecrow? It looked like evil had won the war. It looked like the forces of darkness had completely taken over. The disciples had totally lost hope.

   But here is what really happened! What Satan intended for evil, God worked for good. Jesus death bridged the eternal gap between a perfect God and a spoiled creation. On the day Jesus died, God defeated sin, routed death, won the victory over Satan and got his family back. That is what really happened on the darkest day in history! God transformed the worst deed in human history into the greatest victory ever.

   So the cross gives you and me hope. If God can wrest such triumph out of the jaws of apparent defeat, and can bring such strength from a moment of ultimate weakness, what might He do with the apparent failures and hardships of my own life? The cross teaches me that even when someone is crucified, or punished unjustly , even when my world is coming down upon me, even when I am at the end of my rope, even when it looks like I have completely blown it, even when I feel the weakest and the most helpless, even when things look the most hopeless, when God seems most distant, when God almost seems dead...

   God can transform all of this and accomplish his work. "My strength is made perfect IN weakness!" Just look at the cross. Glory comes through and even especially IN the midst of suffering. Just look at the cross.
   
   

4. There is power in the cross. "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation." Romans 1:16 "... If I be lifted up from the Earth, I will draw all men unto me." (John 12:32)

   There is a drawing power in the the story of the cross that appeals to my sense of logic and rationality. The cross explains to me why I die (it is the penalty for sin) and tells me a logical way by which I can be delivered from death (through the substionary death of God's son).

   The cross draws me emotionally - the idea that the Creator God loves me such as to send his son in human flesh to suffer and die in my place in order to deliver me from sin and death. There is something about that story that naturally and powerfully draws people.

   The power of the cross makes Jesus unique among all the world leaders and religious teachers. One third of Matthew and Mark and one fourth of Luke and one half of John are devoted to describing the last hours of Jesus. By contrast, the biographies of other notable men are not written with such an emphasis on his death. But the biography of Jesus was written that way because his death was the climax of his life and his stated means of world conquest.

   There have been many "messiahs" and other individuals who have tried to gain a world following, who have tried to attract others to them - Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler and Stalin. All of them but Jesus sought power by military might or by the force of their teachings. How different is the Christ whose plan was to draw all men unto himself through his death, the most humiliating and detested and ignominious death of his day! Jesus' plan for world conquest is the most unique and novel plan in all history. This fact alone draws me as the fact of Jesus' death itself draws me.

And it is in the story of the cross that WE find power and incentive and inspiration to seek reconciliation, to confess OUR sins, to ask forgiveness, to change OUR attitudes, to change pride into humility, to suffer for the good of others, to sacrifice our wants and desires for the good of our family and our fellow man, to learn the skills needed to get along well with people...

No wonder the supreme symbol of the church is the cross! Imagine wearing a guillotine around your neck or a mini-electric chair. That is what Christians do when they wear some symbol of the cross. Imagine if you were the parents of the Christian girl murdered at Littleton High School and somehow you came into possession of the gun that blew her brains out. Would you carry that gun around you and revere it and prize it and hold it up for all to see?

Ironically, that is what we do with the cross where Jesus was executed on our behalf. We treasure it. We love it. We value it. We prize it because God transformed the most horrible experience of suffering and pain and evil and humiliation into history's greatest good. And so for us the cross symbolizes all the bad in our lives ... that God can transform into something good. It stands for God's power to change whatever is tormenting and destroying and hurting us into some blessing.

When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it Lord that I should boast
Save in the death of Christ my Lord.
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.