Old Rugged Cross

Marvin Sapp keeps George Bennard's century-old hymn text unchanged, and the opening verse doesn't soften the image it's built around: "the emblem of suff'ring and shame." Most songs about the cross move quickly to victory; this one sits with the shame first, on purpose.

The chorus makes an odd claim for something described as shameful: "that old rugged Cross so despised by the world has a wondrous attraction for me." The hymn doesn't resolve the tension between "despised" and "attraction" — it holds both at once, which is closer to how the cross actually gets described in scripture than a hymn that only sings about triumph.

Peter's description of Christ bearing sins "in his body on the tree," and Paul's refusal to boast in anything except the cross, both sit underneath a hymn that spends three verses "cherishing" an execution device rather than glossing past it. The closing promise — to "exchange it some day for a crown" — echoes Revelation's promise of a crown of life to those faithful even unto death, the same trade the hymn has been describing from its first line.