Sometimes, people need symbols to help them understand a concept or take something seriously. The prophets used symbols regularly. Hosea actually married a whore; God told him that she was a symbol of Israel's adultery. Jeremiah used a linen belt and a yoke to convey the messages of discipline God wanted communicated to His children. The temple, as God designed it, included hundred of symbols of his power, majesty, love and work for His beloved.
Symbols remain emblazoned on our memories. We only need to see a swastika to recall the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust and the ease at which people can treat other people like sewage. We only need to hear "9/11" and instantly we see planes crashing into buildings, thousands of people dying, crashing to the ground.
But the thing with symbols is that they can't do their work of abrupt confrontation if people aren't present to them. Busy-ness, distraction, work, commitments--they all subtract from the power of the symbol.
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One symbol that Christians have used for hundreds of years is the cross. There are millions of cross-symbols in use every day around the world in the 21st century. And truly, it is a powerful picture: God-in-flesh humility, abject poverty, unconditional love, infinite justice and excruciating death, all wrapped up into two pieces of wood slapped together like words in a forgettable sonnet.
But how often do I let myself intentionally dwell on what the cross-symbol confronts me with?
My own internal silence is deafening.
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