Look in the dictionary for the definition of “irony” and you could
see this commercial mailing selling crosses.
The Random House College Dictionary says irony is “a figure of speech
in which the words express a meaning that is often the direct opposite of the
intended meaning.” The definition that arrived on this editors desk
through some quirk of fate is, “Special Church Crosses to help revive the
Spirit of Christ in the world for the next millennium.”
Look in the dictionary for the definition of “irony” and you could
see this commercial mailing selling crosses.
The Random House College Dictionary says irony is “a figure of speech
in which the words express a meaning that is often the direct opposite of the
intended meaning.” The definition that arrived on this editors desk
through some quirk of fate is, “Special Church Crosses to help revive the
Spirit of Christ in the world for the next millennium.”
Some enterprising manufacturer in Brisbane, Australia, mass mailed packets
of material advertising crosses made from trees that are more than 2000 years
old. The brochure says the trees were “preserved by an act of God.”
The wood for the crosses was “discovered, buried beneath the ground, during
the development of a farm property . . . Carbon-dating tests, geological and
archaeological investigations . . .” show the trees “were over 300
years old when they were preserved by an act of God that occurred soon after
the death of Christ.”
This is the only tie-in the folks selling the crosses could make from the wood
to Jesus Christ. It is a stretch, but the entrepreneurs went with it.
The brochure says that “every Christian” will “highly regard
a Cross made of this wood,” and the general public and tourists will visit
any church with one because of “its genuine link to the days of Christ.”
Okay, you must be asking, “How much?”
There are three choices. You can have a three-feet high, two-feet across, made
out of two and one-half inch square pieces Altar Cross for only $10,000.
You can have a six feet by four feet Congregational Cross formed by five and
one-half inch square pieces for only $100,000. But, that is not all. If you
order a Congregational Cross, you will get an Altar Cross absolutely free.
Here is the one everyone must want. It is a cross 12 feet high, eight feet
across, made of 12 inches by 12 inches wood for only $1,000,000. If you order
this one, you get a Congregational Cross absolutely free. This is a $1,100,000
package for only $1 million.
You must hurry with your orders. They have only enough wood for 24 Church Crosses,
100 Congregational Crosses and 700 to 800 Altar Crosses.
How absolutely ironic that anyone would try to make such a stretch for a tie-in
to the cross of Christ to hatch up a scheme to make this kind of money. The
Humble Galilean who died on the cross would surely overturn the cash registers
and bank accounts of such profiteers. One would hope the idea is so absurd that
no crosses are ordered, but in the world of superstition and misplaced values,
one never knows.
Perhaps these shameless hucksters of wooden crosses stand in a vast throng
of people who have done and still do the same. Whatever other meaning the cross
has, it is a means of financial gain.
The value of the cross is its humility. Jesus Christ took two cheap pieces
of wood (the Romans would not have wasted good lumber to kill a criminal) and
turned them into a platform on which he paid a price so great that all humankind
could never have begun to pay it. Any effort to make the cross anything other
than a symbol of suffering and sacrifice is misplaced at best, and gravely sinful
at worst.
Certainly we love the cross, and it is of unspeakable value to believers. But
its value can never be adequately reflected in the material value of any replication
of the shape of a cross.
Easter is only three weeks away. Rather than adorning crosses and adorning
our persons with crosses, we would certainly be better served to contemplate
the cross behind them all, the cross of Christ.
During this Easter season, we would better serve the Person on the Cross by
contemplating how we will take up our crosses in order that we may follow Him.
We could also ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to any ways that we might
be trying to prosper materially from the cross and give us the wisdom to refrain
from such degradation of the cross.
I am thankful to the folks Down Under for one thing: Their blatant effort to
profit from the cross startled me enough to give serious thought to my attitude
toward the cross. Hopefully, Easter will have an even greater meaning.
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