The Beauty of the Old Rugged Cross

Many drawings, paintings, and stained glass images depict Jesus as being radiant and somewhat handsome.

But did you know that the Bible gives a very different description of Jesus?

Isaiah 53:2–7 NIV

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

What an ugly description of Jesus, the Savior of the world!

Why the Old Rugged Cross?

The specific reason that Jesus needed to be crucified rather than die in any other way (stoning, being pushed off of a cliff, drowning, hanging, etc) was because He was destroying the curse on humankind.

Romans 5:12 NKJV

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—

The curse & death all come into our lives because of something called sin

James 4:17 NKJV

Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Romans 3:23 NKJV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Sin is just not doing what we know is right to do and we have all done that.

Every one of us has, at some point, violated our own conscience - that’s sin & it causes the curse and death to come into our life.

Romans 5:19 NKJV

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

Galatians 3:13 NKJV

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),

The Ugly Cross was necessary to deal with something as ugly as the curse of sin!

Crucifixion on a Cross ugly and unimaginably cruel in the hands of the Romans was a beautiful instrument in the hands of God.

The Beauty of the Cross:

2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

God did a miracle at Calvary and took every sin that people would commit and placed them on Jesus to carry.

On the cross of Calvary Jesus didn’t just carry our sin, He became our sin & then nailed it to the cross.

Sin couldn’t come back through the grave, but Jesus did!

You see, Jesus died on the cross to change YOUR life & My Life forever.

We have an empty cross, We have an empty tomb, and we have an occupied throne!

This is what Jesus came for - to completely change our present life and our eternity!

This is the beauty of the Old Rugged Cross:

Isaiah 61:1–4 NKJV

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” And they shall rebuild the old ruins, They shall raise up the former desolations, And they shall repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations.

Thank God for that Beautiful, Old Rugged Cross!

A friend from Georgia told me about how he went to one of the prison facilities that still performs executions of prisoners. He said that got to actually go into the execution room as part of a special tour. In the room, he said there is a phone on the wall, and that a prisoner can receive clemency or pardon even at the very last moment before his execution.

The thing that he said that caught my interest, however, is that he was told that the prisoner must actually accept & receive the pardon in order to stop the execution and become a free person.

The prisoner can choose to keep the sentence of death if they want to.

The same is true for us with Jesus.