Why?

With Easter coming along, I cannot resist commenting on some thoughts I always have when I see people wearing crosses.

What if Jesus had lived in France in the late 18th Century? Would women be wearing miniature guillotines around their necks? Would every Christian church along the 210 freeway have a huge pillar bearing a massive guillotine? What if Jesus had been stabbed to death or hung? Would we have daggers in our windows and large hangman's nooses above the alters?

The issue is why do we take the cross as the icon for Christ? The cross was a vicious and cruel device for putting people to death slowly. What, indeed, does it say about Christianity that this icon of suffering and death seems to be the only way we can remember the life of Jesus? People have largely forgotten what that life was about, in terms of rebellion against the powerful and service to the oppressed. Instead, we remember his ugly death for the narcissistic reason that we hang our own hopes for immortality on it. Clearly, we could care less for his real message.

So, Happy Easter to all you Christians out there.