"The cross is universally accepted as a symbol of Christianity, and should offend no one",
The cross should offend everyone. It is a direct challenge to our moral calculus, to our deeply held philosophies, to our assessment of human nature, freedom and ability. The cross strips away all our religious, intellectual, and ethical pretensions.
The cross is the very central point of the "scandal of particularity." It tells us not only that God is to be found in this way, and in no other, but he cannot be known rightly without us coming to terms with our sin and corruption and with this way of rescue alone.
The cross leaves all people, in all cultures, at all times, horribly exposed as God defying, God evading, rebels. And yet at the same time the cross displays, as nothing else can, the wisdom and power of God. Who would have thought that the very God that we spend all our lives rejecting and replacing should give his own Son to die in the place of the guilty, and to bear their punishment? That he should freely offer to all people life and forgiveness through the cross of Christ? That God should be in the business of making his bitterest enemies his closest friends?
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