Let's Put the Cross in its Place
Recently a man in my church took a business trip to China. When he returned, he gave me a present he had purchased for me in China—a cover for my iPhone. It is nothing more than a piece of plastic that snaps onto my phone. The plastic is covered with black beads, except for two rows of white beads that are in the shape of the cross. The color contrast is stunting. When I pull out my phone, people can’t help but notice the cross. Some comment with an element of surprise in their voice that I am flashing the cross in public.
When I was in seminary one of my professors, Haddon Robinson, had something duplicated, framed, and made available to students to purchase. It is a poem that speaks to this issue. I purchased a copy and for many, many years it hung on my wall. It explains where we ought to put the message of the cross.
Return the Cross to Golgotha
I simply argue that the cross be raised again,
At the center of the marketplace
As well as on the steeple of the church,
I am recovering the claim that
Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral
Between two candles:
But on a cross between two thieves:
On a town garbage heap;
At a crossroads of politics so cosmopolitan
That they had to write His title
In Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek . . .
And at the kind of place where cynics talk sut,
And thieves curse and soldiers gamble.
Because that is where He died
And that is what He died about.
And that is where Christ’s men ought to be,
And where church people ought to be about.
George MacLeod
Let’s put the message of the cross in its place.
© G. Michael Cocoris, 10/302010
When I was in seminary one of my professors, Haddon Robinson, had something duplicated, framed, and made available to students to purchase. It is a poem that speaks to this issue. I purchased a copy and for many, many years it hung on my wall. It explains where we ought to put the message of the cross.
Return the Cross to Golgotha
I simply argue that the cross be raised again,
At the center of the marketplace
As well as on the steeple of the church,
I am recovering the claim that
Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral
Between two candles:
But on a cross between two thieves:
On a town garbage heap;
At a crossroads of politics so cosmopolitan
That they had to write His title
In Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek . . .
And at the kind of place where cynics talk sut,
And thieves curse and soldiers gamble.
Because that is where He died
And that is what He died about.
And that is where Christ’s men ought to be,
And where church people ought to be about.
George MacLeod
Let’s put the message of the cross in its place.
© G. Michael Cocoris, 10/302010