By Rev. Todd R. Lattig
Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23 NLT)
Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.
Part 2: The Cross. The cross is no trinket. It is no harmless decoration. It was a grotesque, horrific instrument of capital punishment, designed not only to kill but to humiliate and terrorize. Crucifixion was slow, brutal, and deliberately public.
The condemned were tied or nailed naked to wooden beams, stripped of dignity as well as clothing, and left to suffocate under the weight of their own body. Each breath became harder than the last. The body’s weight pressed down on the lungs, so the victim had to push up on torn feet just to inhale, each movement scraping flesh against rough wood. Hours stretched into days.
Friends and family, if they dared to come near, could only watch in grief as their loved one slowly collapsed under the strain. Meanwhile, the scent of blood carried far, drawing insects to swarm the wounds and scavenger birds to circle overhead. Dogs or jackals sometimes prowled beneath the crosses, waiting for what Rome would not bother to bury. Crucifixion was not only execution; it was degradation, meant to erase humanity itself.
To put it in modern terms, it would be as if a faith today chose the electric chair, the noose, the firing squad, or the lethal injection needle as its central symbol. That’s how scandalous the cross was in the first century. And yet, Christians did exactly that. They lifted high what the world despised. They proclaimed Christ crucified. Paul admitted it sounded like foolishness—who builds a movement around a state execution?—but to those who believed, it became the very power of God.
Over time, though, the scandal faded. The cross was polished, gilded, carved into pulpits, worn as jewelry. It became safe, sentimental, even weaponized. Some hold it up as a symbol of cultural dominance or political power—ironically, the very thing it meant to the Romans who first used it. But here is the subversion: Christians inverted the meaning. Rome used the cross to proclaim its absolute power; the Church proclaimed the cross as the place where God’s love broke the empire’s grip. What began as a tool of terror became, in Christ, the sign of salvation.
This is one reason why I do not, under any circumstance, support the death penalty. Yes, there are passages of Scripture that seem to condone it. But I believe the Gospel itself must be our standard, and Jesus’ teachings must be our guide. Jesus was himself a victim of capital punishment, executed as an enemy of the state. To hold up the cross while endorsing modern executions feels, to me, like a contradiction too deep to reconcile. That is my position, one I live and teach true to. I do not judge those who struggle with it, because I have too. And I certainly do not condemn those who disagree. But I cannot escape the reality that the cross calls us to something different.
To take up the cross daily is not to wear a charm, but to embrace a costly way of life. It is to stand with the condemned, not condemn them further. It is to resist the cruelty of empire, not baptize it as righteous. It is to embody love, not vengeance—even in the face of death.
The cross still subverts every attempt to wrap violence in the language of virtue, every effort to sanctify exclusion, every excuse we make for injustice. It will not let us demonize LGBTQ people, scapegoat people of color, or silence women who cry out after being assaulted. It will not let us trample the marginalized while pretending to defend the faith.
Christ will not be hijacked by nationalists, culture warriors, or power-hungry voices who try to turn the Gospel into a weapon. Instead, the cross dares us to see Christ—broken, bleeding, condemned—and still confess: this is the One who saves us.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The cross is not a decoration but a defiant witness: Christ crucified, and Christ alone as Lord.PRAYER
God of mercy, forgive us when we make the cross safe or sentimental. Teach us again to see it for what it is: the place where empire’s violence met your radical love. Help me to follow Christ with courage, standing with the suffering, rejecting vengeance, and living the way of costly grace. Amen.
Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).
Part 247: Cornelius. As Luke wrote, Cornelius was the captain of a Roman cohort called, “The Italian.” While, that may sound like the name of a sandwich to us, Roman cohorts were no joke. They were made up of 480 men and were roughly the equivalent of a modern military battalion. Thus, Cornelius was someone who had worked himself up the ranks in the Roman military.
Part 123: High Priest. When we think of the High Priest of the temple in Jerusalem, we think of someone who was from the Levites and was chosen by God to serve in the position of High Priest, fulfilling the duties of ordering the worship life of the Temple and leading the kingdom of Israel in an ongoing and faithful relationship with God. We think of someone divinely chosen and independent of politics.
Part 121: Rome. If one dances with the devil, they are bound to get burned. Case in point: Judaea’s ill-fated alliance with Rome. If you recall from the last devotion, the Hasmoneans allied themselves with Rome in order to protect themselves from the oppression of the tyrannical Seleucid Empire. The Jews signed a treaty with Rome that stated that both parties would defend the other should anyone attack them.
Part 120: Hasmoneans. Hello time travelers! Welcome to the first century CE (Common Era…aka A.D.), the world in which Jesus and the disciples lived and did ministry. Before we can truly understand the New Testament world, it is important for us to have some of the context. The next several devotions will hopefully provide some of the historical contexts that illuminate the world in which Jesus and his disciples lived.