“The Throne of Glory” -- Pondering for Holy Week

Menelik II was emperor of Ethiopia from 1889 until 1913. News reached him of a great new invention to deal with criminals. It was called an “electric chair.” It was the ultimate deterrent to crime, people said. So he ordered one. No one warned him, however, that this new invention would not work in his country because at that time Ethiopia had no electricity.

Menelik was determined that his new purchase should not go to waste, so he converted it into the throne for his palace. He proudly sat upon the electric chair himself for the rest of his reign – proudly turning an instrument of death into a seat of power.

Now this is not the first time that a means of execution has been transformed into a throne. About 2,000 years ago, just outside of Jerusalem, at a place called “the skull”, an ancient means of execution was used. It was intended to give the ultimate humiliation to the victims of its power and to the family and community of the condemned. But with One who was hung from that cross, it was transformed from an ancient symbol of death into the throne of Glory for the God of all creation.

Menelik is forgotten and his story is the story of an uninformed ruler too proud to admit a mistake.

But to this day the cross is, for believers, a powerful symbol of life, hope and resurrection. This ancient instrument of torture is now the vision of hope to a people and to a world that longs for new life and for the power of God. The cross has become God’s way of indicating God’s refusal to let death and destruction have the final world.