Growing up, the cross was a symbol of antisemitism and hatred. For my Jewish parents, it evoked memories of pogroms and Naziism—of centuries of persecution committed in the name of Christ. I still remember when my mother spent a few days in a Catholic hospital. She was so uncomfortable with the crucifix on the wall that she asked me to cover it up. To her, it wasn’t a symbol of love or redemption—it was a reminder of suffering.

And in a way, that discomfort isn’t entirely misplaced. The cross has always been offensive. Just as it was in Paul’s day, the message of the cross and Christ crucified remains “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23).

When I was a Latter-day Saint, I tended to focus much more on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus rising out of the empty tomb. I didn’t spend as much time thinking about the bloody and beaten Jesus dying on the cross. But I’ve since come to realize that while Gethsemane is where Jesus submitted to the Father’s will, the cross is where He carried it out, bearing the weight of sin in full view of heaven and earth. While Gethsemane shows Jesus’ obedience, Calvary shows His love poured out in blood.

This Good Friday I’ve been thinking a lot about the cross and asking myself some questions:

Why did Jesus have to die in such a bloody public fashion? Why did he have to suffer on one of the cruelest torture instruments that mankind has ever designed? Why did he have to be humiliated and abandoned.

As I’ve thought about it, I came to the realization that the cross was the perfect manifestation of both the wrath of God at our sin, and his deep and abiding love and mercy. At the cross both the cost of our sin and the price that God was willing to pay to reconcile us to him are in full display.

The public nature of the cross is part of the point. Jesus wasn’t executed in private, quietly or cleanly—he was nailed up on a hill for everyone to see.

And that’s because the cross isn’t just a transaction that happened between God and Jesus—it’s a spectacle, meant to confront us with the reality of our sin and the depth of God’s grace.

The Romans did this as a warning to anyone who dared to defy their empire. But Paul says in Colossians 2:15 that God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in [Christ].” At the very moment when Jesus looked most defeated—beaten, stripped, mocked, and dying—God was actually shaming the spiritual powers of darkness. The public humiliation of Christ was also a public victory over sin, Satan, and death.

The cross is also meant to make us uncomfortable because it is a mirror. When we look at Jesus bleeding and suffering, we’re forced to reckon with the truth: this is what our sin deserves. Jesus suffered and died for our sins.

“He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities… and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5–6)

Jesus’ public agony is God’s visible, undeniable statement about the gravity of sin—and about the depth of His love. He didn’t shield us from the cost. He put it on full display, because we’re not meant to look away. God doesn’t take sin lightly—and neither should we.

The cross is also the ultimate demonstration of Christ’s love for us. And the way He chose to describe it might surprise us.

Jesus once said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15). He was pointing back to a strange episode in Israel’s history. The people had rebelled against God, and in judgment He sent poisonous snakes among them. When the people cried out for mercy, God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole—so that anyone who looked at it would be healed.

It was shocking: the thing that symbolized their judgment became the very thing that saved them.

And so with the cross. Jesus became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was “lifted up” so that everyone who looks to Him in faith will be saved. As we look up at the cross, we have to grapple with the horror of divine judgment and realize that he endured that for us.

The cross is where we see how serious our sin is. But it’s also where we see how far Christ was willing to go for us.

Jesus didn’t love us with mere sentiment. He loved us by stepping into the place of judgment, becoming the visible object of wrath so that we could receive mercy. And He didn’t do it in secret—He did it publicly, painfully, and purposefully. He wanted us to see it. He wants us to behold Him—and live.

Shortly before he went to the cross, Jesus told his disciples “”Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13 (ESV) Jesus didn’t just say those words—He lived them out. He laid down His life, not only for His friends, but for enemies (Romans 5:10), in order to give them eternal life and reconciliation with God.

The cross was not just the prelude to the resurrection; it was the victory. There, He took our curse. There, He crushed the serpent’s head. There, He declared, “It is finished.”

This Good Friday, I can’t look away.

I can’t explain the cross away or soften it into something less offensive. I must look, just like the Israelites looked at the serpent in the wilderness. I must look and see what my sin cost—and what God’s love paid.

Because it was there, lifted up for all to see, that Jesus bore my guilt, satisfied divine justice, and offered me life.

And in that cruel, wooden cross—bloody, cursed, and public—I see God’s wrath poured out on Christ and his mercy towards me. I see the very heart of God.

“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 6:14)