The Old Rugged Cross - George Bennard

It won’t be long now, I thought, until the grass starts to grow, the plants leap outta the ground, and the trees begin to bud. It wasn’t hard to conjure up thoughts like that as I walked through the yard on a warm March Saturday morning. I have two trees, a maple and a dogwood – about 25 bags of leaves every autumn. Every spring, the dogwood blooms are a shade of pink, and come out first, followed by the Maple that comes on in a flash in a two-week stretch in May. That’s about as much notice as I give ‘em, really, and it shows. Another maple I used to have was taken over and eaten by beetles (or so I was informed by tree experts) because I didn’t see what was going on in time … and neither did my tree experts! How about your trees…do you notice ‘em? Most of us know about a tree that was made into a cross 21 centuries ago, even if we haven’t been to a church in ages, or maybe go just occasionally. Many songwriters have thought about this famous tree, but perhaps none have written about it with more memorable words than George Bennard, who wrote “The Old Rugged Cross”. Bennard wrote “The Old Rugged Cross” in 1913 at a time when he was going through a difficult, though unspecific, experience. It made him think about Christ’s cross suffering (Philippians 3:10) and how the Lord’s redemptive act for mankind was so central to his faith. He soon penned the songs’ words and gave them to Charles Gabriel, a leading hymn-writer in the early 20th Century. As someone has said, ‘Now you know the rest of the story’, for the song has been so well-loved that by some estimates it was America’s favorite hymn in the 1925-60 period. Three towns -- Al­bi­on, Mi­chi­gan; Po­ka­gon, Mi­chi­gan; and Stur­geon Bay, Wis­con­sin -- have claimed to be the birthplace of Bennard’s song. In Reed Ci­ty, Mi­chi­gan, where Bennard spent the last years of his life, the Cham­ber of Com­merce put a cross near his home, and a museum has been dedicated to his work. This song appears very different from the hallelujah psalms that Jesus and His Apostles might have sung, with words like ‘cross’ -- a very cruel instrument of death -- and ‘blood’, ‘suffering’, ‘slain’, ‘reproach’, and ‘shame’. Not much praiseworthy there, right? But, as I read a little more about “The Old Rugged Cross”, I discovered something that struck me. George Bennard began his Christian life as a worker in the well-known relief organization The Salvation Army, when his father died and he needed to support his mother and sisters. Bennard and his wife served in the Salvation Army in Illinois, and later he was ordained as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church and conducted revivals in New York and Michigan. Think about The Salvation Army -- the good-hearted folks who stand in front of K-Mart in the cold in December, ringing bells and asking for donations -- for a moment. We don’t ring bells, and the collection plates don’t look like kettles at the church (usually), but we do have one thing in common with Bennard and his co-workers. We who are saved are also part of God’s Salvation Army, and we (like Jesus, see Hebrews 12) overcome our sadness because of the joy set before us. When he wrote that he loved the old cross, George Bennard wasn’t expressing an illogical attachment to a hunk of wood…he was zeroing in on Jesus’ deepest act of love toward him, and reflecting that devotion back to the Lord through a song. So, don’t avoid the cross, nor those words ‘blood’, ‘suffering’, ‘slain’, ‘reproach’, and ‘shame’. Join with the Army of God, and sing Bennard’s reminder that we’ve overcome!

Sources for the song’s history and its composer obtained from the following site: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/r/oruggedc.htm Also see the following books: “Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990. “101 Hymn Stories”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982. “The Complete Book of Hymns: Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2006.