Whosoever will come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mark 8.34)
In polite Roman society, it was as bad as swearing to say
the word ‘cross.’ No decent Roman ever mentioned it, let alone considered dying
on a cross. Jews had a similar horror of crucifixion. It was hanging on a tree,
which is cursed in Old Testament Law. However the cross was never far from the
Lord Jesus’ mind. He thought about it in eternity, when He was marked out by
God as the Lamb. He thought about the cross in history, when the Holy Spirit
inspired the prophets to describe those sufferings in intimate detail. He
thought about the cross during his earthly life, since He often told His
followers that He was going to die.
