The Cross and the Lynching Tree: Pondering Such These Days

I was struck last night in our Bible study Zoom meeting. We discussed the Lucan account of Jesus’ crucifixion. We talked about the brutality of it, the most brutal form of punishment human beings have ever come up with, so said Josephus, the historian of old.

The Romans had this down to a few painful rituals that started with the convicted person forced to carry his own cross beam and to do so naked. Then, to be hung up on that cross beam and hoisted into the air, with or without nails in the forearms or wrists and nails in the feet with each foot atop the other. The person either died from blood loss or from asphyxiation.

While we talked about the theology of the crucifixion and the salvation that Jesus’ sacrifice brings to believers, my mind drifted to another theme.

And the people watched. The people gathered. Crucifixion as public spectacle. “And the people stood watching.”

America knows that sort of thing. Well over 4,000 African Americans, men, women, and children, born and unborn, lynched. We have well preserved the photos of the events. Post cards were printed to memorialize the event, sold for a nickel so a person could write about it to a relative back home or across the state. Lynching as public spectacle, lynching as public theater. Lynching as social control.

For African Americans it was seen as a threat. Farm too much land. Somebody is going to get lynched. Your grocery story is too successful, by comparison to the white family’s store down the way, somebody is going to get lynched.  Argue with a white man on the streets of town, somebody is going to get lynched. Argue about the price on the cotton crop, somebody is going to get lynched. Whistle at a woman, or have it talked about that he did, he will get lynched. Get accused of a crime, which he did or did not do, and without due process, a mob is going to lynch that man. Lynchings were spectacle, they were punitive, and they were designed to keep Black people under control. Some lynchings were by men in white hoods. Other lynchings were in broad daylight. Some lynchings took place over open flames.

And the crowds watched. The people stared. The kids got out of school. Parents brought their children. Degradation upon degradation upon degradation.

Jesus was lynched by the leaders of the day who used the Romans, whom they hated, for their own nefarious ends.

Black people were lynched in broad day light or under the shadow of darkness. And then the lynchers went to church. Some men served their white churches as deacons.

The crowd watched as Jesus was crucified. The crowd watched as that Black man was lynched.

And they went home. Or, they celebrated their religious rituals.

One more insurrection thwarted. One more Black person used to keep whiteness in control.

One more self-justification for wrongs done to innocent people.

The cross and the lynching tree. Powerful weapons of power and control. Time to read Dr. James Cone again to make sense out of all of this.

And then it’ll be time to contemplate how we “lynch” Black people today. Take their land and livelihoods say Black farmers. Steal their proprietary information says a Black author. Remove her from office says a Black educator.

Their words, not mine.