Sermon Illustrations on the Cross

Scratched into plaster in a building on the Palatine Hill in Rome is a crude drawing: a figure on a cross with the head of a donkey, and beside it a man with his hand raised. The caption reads, roughly, "Alexamenos worships his god." It is a piece of mockery aimed at a real person, by someone who found his beliefs ridiculous. It is also one of the earliest surviving depictions of the crucifixion — and it is a joke. That is how the cross registered to the people who first heard it preached.

Sourcing — The Alexamenos graffito is a real artefact, discovered in the nineteenth century in the Domus Gelotiana on the Palatine and usually dated to around the late second or early third century. Dating is debated; the mocking content is not.

Cicero, defending a client in a case involving crucifixion, told the court that the very word "cross" should be far removed not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. That is not a preacher being dramatic. That is a Roman senator saying the term is unfit for polite speech. We put the word in hymns and on birthday cards.

Sourcing — Cicero, Pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo, section 16. Widely quoted; the reference is checkable and worth naming from the pulpit.

There was a man in a cell that morning who had been convicted, and there was a cross with his name on the schedule. He did not repent, argue, or ask for anything. As far as the text tells us he was simply told he could go, and another man was taken out in his place. Somewhere in Jerusalem that evening was a guilty man who was not on his cross, because someone else was.

At the moment of death the curtain of the temple was torn in two — and both Matthew and Mark specify the direction: from the top to the bottom. That detail is doing theological work. A curtain torn from the bottom is a human achievement. A curtain torn from the top is not. The barrier came down from the far side, by a hand nobody in the temple could reach.

In Numbers 21 the people are dying of snakebite, and the remedy God gives is peculiar: make a bronze image of the thing that is killing you, put it up on a pole, and anyone who looks at it lives. No medicine, no penance, no effort. Look and live. Jesus reaches for that story to explain his own death — as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

The first person Jesus promises paradise to is a convicted criminal being executed alongside him, who has done nothing whatever for God and has approximately three hours to live. He cannot be baptised, cannot make restitution, cannot attend anything or join anything or fix anything. He says one sentence, and the answer is "today".

Picture a small gold electric chair on a chain around someone's neck. Picture a gallows in stained glass above the communion table, or a guillotine in silver on a lapel. Every instinct says that would be grotesque. The cross is that object. We have simply had two thousand years to get used to it, which is a long enough time for an instrument of torture to become a design motif.

The cry from the cross — my God, my God, why have you forsaken me — is the opening line of Psalm 22. That matters in two directions. It means the desolation is real and voiced, not softened. It also means that the man dying is praying a psalm he had known since childhood, which goes on to describe pierced hands and feet and divided clothing, and ends in vindication. He is not abandoning the scriptures at the end. He is quoting them.

What is a good illustration about the cross?

Something that makes it strange again. The Alexamenos graffito — a second-century cartoon mocking a man for worshipping a crucified figure — does it with one artefact, and Barabbas walking free does it with no outside material at all.

Where do preachers find illustrations?

For this theme, mostly in the text and in checkable ancient sources. Cicero on the word "cross" and the Palatine graffito are both easy to verify, which matters more here than anywhere else because a fabricated cross illustration undermines the sermon it appears in.

How many illustrations should a sermon have?

Two or three. On Good Friday, fewer: one image held for a long time usually does more than several in sequence, and the service itself is carrying part of the load.

Do I need to cite an illustration's source?

For historical claims about the crucifixion, yes, and briefly out loud. "Cicero said this in a defence speech" takes four seconds and moves the story from something the preacher asserts to something the congregation could look up.

How graphic should I be about the crucifixion?

Less than you think. The gospel writers report it in a few words and spend their detail on the mockery, the darkness, and the torn curtain. Following their proportions is safer than following a modern film.

How do I preach the cross to people who have heard it every year?

Change the angle rather than the volume. Preach it from Barabbas, from the centurion, from Psalm 22, from the temple curtain. The event is the same and the door into it does not have to be.