Fishing with some friends on vacation we all laughed as Gina was
squeamish about baiting the hook. Our friend said, "Fishing, it aint pretty."
Since then we have joked about the phrase on numerous other occasions. Just fill in the
blank, "_________ , it aint pretty." What do you fill the blank with? The phrase
makes me think of a conversation that occurred,
To the waitress: "I like your cross earrings. Are you a Christian?"
Waitress: "No, I just like crosses."
Were crosses meant to be pretty? I remember one time in a staff meeting at another
church looking very closely at a small jar of screws. The screws were not that unique.
They didn’t look like the hardware variety. These were pretty, and polished, and
bright. They reflected the light in their shining stainless steel. But they were still
screws. What made these screws unique was not their appearance but knowing where they had
been. They had come out of the ankle of Lou Wright, the Pastor’s wife, along with a
metal plate. It made one cringe to look at those pretty shiny things—one was 2 inches
long--knowing where they came from. They were a bit gruesome. It wasn’t that they
were bloody. They were spotless. I suppose Lou could make a piece of jewelry out of them
and wear them, as dangling earrings? But I don’t think that would enhance their value
any. The screws had healing value only while carried on the inside, while carried in pain.
We have seen the cross out of context so often now that we tend to forget its
gruesomeness. If we forget its gruesomeness we will also forget its true beauty. The cross
meant death and healing, like the screws meant both pain and healing. We dare not forget
that, "The Cross, it aint pretty." There is nothing pretty about "taking up
our cross" in the original context. We must carry the death of self-life. We must
carry our coffin. Carrying the cross isn’t pretty because there is a cost when we
pick it up to follow Jesus. However there is something very beautiful about the results of
the cross. We treasure the cross because of its value to us. We treasure it because it is
exchanged for something that is pretty, the crown of life.
