The Old Rugged Cross


This week started with a beautiful sunshine-filled Monday in our part of the world and I hope you got a chance to enjoy it a bit!


This week is also a bit heavy for me in my pastoral role as I help a couple of families say goodbye to loved ones who've passed away. In one of those celebrations of life, I was asked to sing a favorite old hymn about an old rugged cross. Here is verse 3 of The Old Rugged Cross,

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
a wondrous beauty I see,
for 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
to pardon and sanctify me.

It's like ground zero for every follower of Jesus right? 

I did a bit of homework on the writer George Bennard who was born in Ohio just after the end of the US Civil War. He wrote, "I read and studied and prayed...The Christ of the Cross became more than a symbol...It was like seeing John 3:16 leave the printed page, take form, and act out the meaning of redemption..."

As I sing it this week at the funeral, I will be thinking too of Jesus' great act of love that bought our redemption...

This, you see, is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God’s new age.
-John 3:16 from NT Wright's New Testament for Everyone translation



Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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