Now if we were able to somehow step outside our own familiarity with the cross, and the fashionable gloss with which the bare wood is so often covered, we might consider its importance to be something strange. On the one hand, our irrepressible desire for some kind of natural theology that celebrates power and glory and fame has always struggled with understanding the God who is revealed in the depths of the cross. Humanly speaking it is strange that those who claim to worship the one God, creator of all, should meet around a cross. On the other hand, governments which have rejoiced in their own all-embracing authority have banished the lowly cross from public view. Humanly speaking it is strange that those with such power have feared the weakness of the cross.

But it is a cross, in its imaginative construction, that is the pinnacle of that small church in Nepal. It is also, now, an image of Jesus dying on the cross which greets the worshippers at the restored 16th. Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, whose story is told in the Foreword above. For the church, in all its historical, geographical and theological breadth, has always understood salvation to be focused on the death of Jesus on the cross. Even in our own familiarity, we recognize that the cross speaks of depths in God’s relationship with the world which we find hard to fathom.

One aspect of the death of Jesus that resonates with our general understanding is that of sacrifice, far removed though we are from the Jewish sacrificial system, for many a good story tells of the sacrifice of one for the sake of another. For example, in the recent popular film Titanic, Jack, the happy-go lucky hero, does all that is in his power to ensure that Rose, his new found love, survives the sinking of the unsinkable ship, even though he himself dies in the water. There is the sense in the film that Jack not only physically saves Rose from the water, but as a result of their whole relationship, Rose is freed to life a new life. We may, therefore, not be surprised that Jesus refused to back down in the face of opposition, but continued to defend the poor and vulnerable and preach the kingdom of God, accepting the consequences. That such a cruel means of torture and execution becomes so potent a symbol for those who followed is equally understandable, for it signified the great love and commitment at the heart of Jesus’ ministry.

What is significant, but also somewhat strange, is that Christian theology has understood the cross to be the most crucial act of God. The whole of salvation, with all its implications for a suffering-free eternal life with God, characterized by peace, harmony and worship, and whether it has been understood mainly in terms of the salvation of soul or the creation of a new heaven and earth, rests upon the execution of this Jewish teacher. In the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, the great salvation story of the Old Testament, the first-born of the Egyptians are slain and Pharaoh’s armies are drowned in the Red Sea. God’s people are saved by a mighty act of God which is described in military terms. Christian theologians have also spoken of the cross as no less of a victory, but one in which the weakness of the cross both reveals the love of God, and also effects our salvation. In Barth’s well known phrase, that so well describes the shocking reality of the cross, ‘God wills to lose, in order that man may gain.’1 Faced with the cosmic significance of an event that inverts so many of our natural assumptions, there is a real sense that when we enter the vast majority of church buildings, with a cross on the wall, we see salvation strangely.