At first glance the cross is a very peculiar symbol of identity and hope. In the Greco-Roman world in which Jesus lived and died, the cross was an instrument of great suffering and shame. Under the Romans, crucifixion was regarded as a terrible punishment visited upon rebels and slaves. One ancient writer called it the “cruelest punishment.” It was a public event, meant to deter possible troublemakers from rebelling or acting badly. For people in Jesus’s time and place, crucifixion was a symbol of terror and shame rather than identity and hope.
