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SHELBY — On Good Friday, two street ministers could be seen bearing the cross along the road in downtown Shelby. The rainy morning brought back memories of an incident that would have a ripple effect for years to come. The day before Resurrection Day in 1998, Bill Leding saw a front page newspaper article reporting about a crosswalk held by Shelby churches with congregants carrying a cross from church to church as a silent witness on Good Friday.
Instantly Leding felt a small voice tell him “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Since then, Leding who serves as the Chaplain of the Richland County Honor Guard, and others have carried a cross to commemorate the crucifixion of Christ during Holy Week and on Good Friday for twenty years, walking in Mansfield, Ontario, Shelby, and cities across the country, even in the Ukraine.
According to Tim Schill, a fellow minister who works with “Pure Desire” a ministry discipling men in sexual purity, “We just want to represent Christ and what he has done for mankind. Many times people give prayer requests and tell us that carrying the cross downtown generates conversation about spiritual things.”
Recently in the news, a 2018 peer-reviewed journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences published findings that Italian researchers say is tangible evidence of execution by crucifixion. The published analysis on a 2007 discovery of a 2,000 year-old skeleton in northern Italy was discovered in a Roman burial site during excavation.
The analysis makes it the second documented archaeological case of execution on on cross. the first being a 1968 Jerusalem excavation in the Giv’at HaMivtar neighborhood from the Second Temple Jewish era (200 BC to 70 AD).
Bill Leding
“When we walk with the cross in communities, we have faced resistance. Really the biggest opposition I personally have when I walk with the cross is myself. I feel so unworthy to carry it (the cross). Every person has a skeleton in their closet. But Christ died on a cross for all of our sins; He overcame death and his tomb is empty.”
When Leding walks in communities with the cross. there has been bones of contention. “When we walk with the cross in communities, we have faced resistance. Really the biggest opposition I personally have when I walk with the cross is myself. I feel so unworthy to carry it (the cross). Every person has a skeleton in their closet. But Christ died on a cross for all of our sins; He overcame death and his tomb is empty.”
Leding recalls when he was walking with cross thru the Ohio State University Campus in Columbus. “The students would just scatter and run, they didn’t want anything to do with me. Another time when I was walking in the urban flats of Cincinnati, I was mistakenly accused of being a part of a KKK effort.”
Several years ago, Leding attended a “Mayday for Marriage” rally event in Washington D.C. When he arrived in the nation’s capital, he was told by Capital Police in the Mall that he could not carry the cross since it was larger than what people were allowed to carry.
“The officer told me that I would go to jail if I continued. So I decided to call my home church Berean Baptist and ask for prayer. After the phone call, I asked the officer if I could speak to his Supervisor. When I shared photos of my past crosswalks I have done, the Supervisor had police dogs sniff the cross and then told me I was free to walk with the cross.”
The Bottom Line:
The Bible says in Romans One, ‘The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but those being saved it is the power of GOD.’
View video on “The Crucifixion: A Medical Perspective” (6 min. duration)
