The cross becomes a symbol of controversy again. In the UK a legal battle ensues over whether or not an individual may wear a cross on the job as a symbol of their faith. A Scottish bishop is urging Christians everywhere to don their cruciform jewelry in protest.

It’s bizarre, really –the cross as an identifying mark. Only Jesus could turn a symbol of ultimate humiliation into a symbol of ultimate victory.

But only those who do not understand the depth of God’s love, or recognize the horror of the cross or how far God was willing to go to demonstrate his love and provide a means of salvation could trivialize that symbol to the status of “pretty.”

The cross was an instrument of torture and execution, people!

Put it this way, what if we substituted other such instruments in our songs, expressions and living room-friendly art work?

How about some songs?

“Oh blessed noose that will not let me go…”

“The gas chamber in which Jesus died, is a shelter in which we can hide…”

“At the electric chair where I first saw the light…”

“At the foot of the firing squad, I lay my burden down…”

Or how about sending someone a greeting card with a lily bedecked hypodermic syringe and I.V. tubing, superimposed with the message, “To comfort you in the loss of your loved one?”

Can you picture driving by a cemetery with row upon row of chopping blocks and axes?

Hear your long suffering aunt sighing, “It’s just my water board to bear,” or the preacher urging his flock to “take up their rack and follow Him.”

I’m imagining a certain accident prone friend saying, “Here. Hold my beer while I try something,” then making the sign of the iron maiden by poking himself several times with a finger before proceeding with his next misadventure.

On Sundays we could have a colourfully robed line of clerics solemnly proceeding down the aisle of a cathedral wearing those arrow-through-the-head costume pieces we see at Halloween.

How about a golden guillotine on the top of the steeple or the carved figure of a nearly naked man, eyes bulging and tongue lolling as he is garrotted, mounted on the wall behind the altar –or a fifty foot sign beside the parking lot that reads “First Church of the Holy Stake and Flames. Sunday Services 9:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. Everyone welcome?”

I’m thinking of creating a new jewelry line –little spears, mines, arrows, swords, machine guns, chainsaws, missiles, flame throwers, personal fire arms, and atomic bomb mushroom-shaped clouds, fashioned in jewel-encrusted gold, silver, platinum –dangling from ears, hung on intricate chains over impressive décolletages or hairy muscular chests, and clinking on charm bracelets. If someone asks, I can say these represent the various ways in which people have misunderstood the message of Jesus’ submission to the cross and the methods they have employed to impose their version of “peace” on each other without paying attention to anything Jesus actually said. They might even represent the torture and execution instruments being used on his disciples around the world today who have chosen to truly follow him –or could even be used on Christ himself, if he showed up in our malls or meeting halls and challenged the way we think.

Do Christians need to wear jewelry to identify them as believers? Did not Jesus Christ say that this was the identifying mark?

“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”( John 13:35)

If the world can’t tell us apart without metal crosses around our necks, going to court and demanding our rights is not going to solve a thing. If it takes jewelry to identify those of us who call ourselves by his name, we need to be introduced to the real Jesus.