What is the meaning of the cross?

If you looked at Jesus on the cross, you saw a man in a loin cloth, and you would see skin and flesh and bones and hair, but you wouldn't see this package of human sin wrapped up and placed upon his body.

It was invisible.

The cross of Jesus Christ involves a historical event where a man was convicted of a crime against the Roman government and he was sentenced to death by crucifixion. And the story tells us and describes the environment, the location, the characters that were

involved, the method of death that was employed, and even the words of Jesus that he spoke

from the cross. And not only do we get the information and the details that describe the event as it took

place, but we even get in the gospel record some people's interpretation of the meaning

of the event.

For example, Caiaphas said, it is expedient for the nation that this man be put to death.

And so from his perspective, we learn that the execution of Jesus was done out of political

expediency to get the heat of the Romans off the Jewish Sanhedron.

And let's quiet down the people will sacrifice this itinerate preacher.

We see Pilots statement where he cleanses his hands and he says, I find no fault in this man.

And he has an interpretation of his own political expedience, or we hear the

testimony of the centurion at the foot of the cross who said, surely, this man was the

son of God. And what was going on here?

Was it simply an event of a poor, misguided, Jewish rabble-rouser who was put to death through

some political chicanery that took place in Palestine two thousand years ago?

Was this one a deluded charlatan, guilty of treason against both the synagogue and the state?

Or was this God incarnate going to the cross to die a cosmic death of atonement that would have radical

consequences for the eternal destinies of thousands and millions of people.

Indeed, for the whole world.

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