we speak of amazing grace
while you hold silence in death
we proclaim what happened then
yet you still do this now
we are tempted to celebrate resurrection
when the cross still holds you fast
we move too quickly to alleluias
when breath is yet within you
we bring ourselves to Easter’s doorstep
before the tomb is filled
we have so much to say about life
may we be silent with you in death

(by Roddy Hamilton)

In 1968, Arthur Blessitt was an evangelist who ran a Christian coffee house on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. He clearly remembers the Lord directing him to construct a cross for the coffee house. After making a 12-foot cross, Arthur hung it on the coffee house wall. But soon the Lord was calling Arthur to take the cross down from the wall and to take short trips with it along Sunset Strip, giving food to the hungry. Arthur willingly followed the Lord's calling.

Then in 1969, Arthur heard the Lord call him to carry the 12-foot cross across America. So on December 25, Arthur began his journey of 3,500 miles from Los Angeles to New York and finally to Washington DC. It took him six months.

Then in 1972, Arthur was called to carry the cross in Northern Ireland and shared the gospel with IRA soldiers. He went on to the war-torn land of Lebanon and shared the gospel with both sides in that conflict.

On June 13, 2008, Arthur Blessitt walked his 38,102nd mile carrying the cross with his trip to Zanzibar, off of the coast of Tanzania. For 38 years, Arthur Blessit had carried the cross to 315 countries, island groups, and territories. He walked on all seven continents including Antarctica and had walked through 52 countries that were at war.

Arthur said the following: "Now, for over 38 years I have sought to be faithful to Jesus and that call. The walk from nation to nation and across continents has put me in touch with people in all their hurts, pain, struggles, dreams, wars, happiness, hunger, greed generosity, hate, and love. Sometimes I feel the 12-foot cross is the lightest weight I bear. I go with the cross, Jesus and love to people not just as a walker or traveler or adventurer -- but as a pilgrim."

One of the heroes of World War I was Frank Luke Jr. He was an American fighter pilot from Phoenix, Arizona. In September 1917, at age twenty, Frank joined the army air corps and was accepted into flight training. After several months of training, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and granted a fourteen-day leave. He went to Phoenix to be with his family one last time before going off to war.

While on leave, his mother Tillie asked him: "Frank, dear, I've been meaning to ask you to plant some lily bulbs for me. The weather is so perfect for it today. Would you mind terribly?"

Frank took the bag of bulbs and spent some time alone in the front yard before leaving to find his friends. Just a few days later, he shipped out to join the war in France. Frank became an "ace" during the war. In a seventeen-day period, Frank broke every record for downing enemy aircraft.

On September 29, 1918, Tillie stepped into the front yard to find an amazing sight. The Easter lilies that Frank had planted had suddenly burst into bloom -- strangely out of season in September. Lilies typically bloom in June in Phoenix. But there was more, it was clear that the lilies had been planted in a cross-like shape of a World War I airplane! Frank was crazy about airplanes and a devout Christian, so his intention was clear to his mother.

Word of the marvelous blooming of the lilies spread. A newspaper photographer came to the house and that week the Sunday paper ran a photo of Tillie standing beside the cross of lilies.

Two months later, word came from Europe that Frank had died. The date of his death was September 29, 1918.

The Cross. It struck fear in the hearts of the world. It was Rome's means of controlling the people. According to Roman custom, the penalty of crucifixion was always preceded by scourging; after this preliminary punishment, the condemned person had to carry the cross, or at least the transverse beam of it, to the place of execution, exposed to the jibes and insults of the people. On arrival at the place of execution the cross was uplifted. Soon the sufferer, entirely naked, was bound to it with cords.

He was then, fastened with four nails to the wood of the cross. Finally, a placard called the titulus bearing the name of the condemned man and his sentence, was placed at the top of the cross. Slaves were crucified outside of Rome in a place called Sessorium, beyond the Esquiline Gate; their execution was entrusted to the carnifex servorum (the place of the hangman).

Eventually this wretched locality became a forest of crosses, while the bodies of the victims were the pray of vultures and other rapacious birds.

It often happened that the condemned man did not die of hunger or thirst, but lingered on the cross for several days. To shorten his punishment therefore, and lessen his terrible sufferings, his legs were sometimes broken. This custom, exceptional among the Romans, was common with the Jews.

In this way it was possible to take down the corpse on the very evening of the execution. Among the Romans, though, the corpse could not be taken down, unless such removal had been specially authorized in the sentence of death.

The corpse might also be buried if the sentence permitted. It is remarkable that all of this the Bible records with the simple words, "And they crucified Him." (Mark 15:24).

It is interesting that Jesus is responsible for the abolishment of the cross as a means of capital punishment. In the early part of the fourth century Constantine continued to inflict the penalty of the cross on slaves guilty of, in the old Latin, delatio domini, i.e. of denouncing their masters. But later on he abolished this infamous punishment, in memory and in honor of the Passion of the Christ. From then on, this punishment was very rarely inflicted and finally the practice faded into history. But, oh, how history has remembered.

As the week of Jesus' Passion now closes, it is well for us to reflect upon the cross. Martin Luther said, "Man must always have a cross." Jesus said:

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Every one of us does have a cross to bear, but which one? Is ours the cross on the right, the left, or the center? Let us review for a moment this scene on Calvary.

1. The first cross represents the cross of rebellion.
2. The second cross represents the cross of repentance.
3. The third cross, that of Jesus, represents the cross of redemption.

(from http://www.sermons.com)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

(by W. H. Auden)