This week we celebrate the death of our Savior, and today we're going to look at the crucifixion

from its historical and physical realities. Next time we'll look at the spiritual meaning and

the theological implications of the cross, but we begin with the simple and deplorable reality

of this form of human extermination. With that in mind, the following is a special reading

for the Aspastor John podcast taken from Fleming Religious Book, the crucifixion, understanding

the death of Jesus Christ, pages 89 to 95. Her book is especially vivid and strong on this point.

It is formidable difficult to understand the cross today in its original context after

2,000 years in which it has been domesticated, romanticized, idealized, and misappropriated.

Occasionally a modern interpreter struggling to find some correspondence that can be grasped

by people today will compare the cross of Roman times to the American electric chair.

This is an inadequate analogy for a number of reasons as we shall see. We can learn a few things from

it. Imagine revering an electric chair. Imagine using it as the focal point in our churches,

hanging small replicas around our necks, carrying it a loft in procession,

and bowing our heads as it passes. The absurdity of this scenario can readily be grasped.

But other features in the comparison might help us too. For example,

the electric chair, when it was still used, was almost always used for electrocuting the lowest

class of criminal, a majority of them black, with no powerful connections or other resources.

Similarly, the Romans virtually never used the cross for executing people who had occupied

high positions, and never for a Roman citizen. Another point of contact is the contradictory

response of revulsion and attraction familiar to anyone who has ever slowed to look at a wreck on

the highway. Even the most fastidious person, when confronted by a photograph of an electric

chair, let alone the real thing, will experience a disturbing fascination. There have always been

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