What Did Crucifixion Actually Entail?

Today's feast, the Triumph of the Cross, is one of those remarkable Christian paradoxes. To describe an unspeakably brutal execution as a "triumph" seems either a bad joke or plain madness. But we Christians delight in this odd juxtaposition of agony and ecstacy, because we know the deepest truth of the cross is God's swallowing up of even the greatest sin. And so like Paul we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. How have you perhaps sensed the triumph of the cross in your own life?