My Chi-Rho Tattoo

A tattoo is a huge decision.  If it goes on you, it’s there for good unless you want to go through some painful laser surgery.  It’s like being married to a symbol on your body.  I actually waited five years to finally get the tattoo I had chosen.  Since it was going in such a visible place, I wanted to make sure I could live every day with this symbol on my right forearm.  I decided to for it after coming out of a very dark period of my life.  The tattoo I got was the ancient Greek “Chi Rho” symbol.  Eight years later I had it put on a custom guitar I had made by Fortenbery Guitars.

Everywhere I go people ask me what my tattoo means and I usually only tell one part of the story.  I figured I might as well do a blog explaining the bigger picture.  Like a lot of things about me, (some say) the symbol is pretty controversial.  It has an interesting history of something both beautiful and horrible.

The good part of the story

The Chi Rho is one of the oldest symbols for Christ.  It is a symbol combined of the first two letters of Christ in Greek.  Chi- the “Ch,” and Rho is “R.”  Some refer to it as a cross because that image is in it, but primarily it serves as a symbolic remembrance of Jesus’ roll as the Christ.  It actually predates the ichthus (fish) as a symbol for Christ. I decided that since I had dedicated my life to Christ and his mission, I should be “branded” as his… in a way.  That’s the simple part of the story and the part I usually tell.

Now the dark side of the story

For the first 300 years of the Church, it was persecuted in most of the Roman world.  It was illegal to be a Christian for many reasons.  Christians were so counter-cultural because they reflected the upside-down values of the Kingdom of God as they followed the King who ushered in that value system.  That King was Jesus. This King died for his enemies instead of over powering them.  He and his followers conquered with the power of the cross, the power of love, the power of sacrificial service, instead of conquering with the power of the sword like a pagan kingdom.   The kingdoms of this world all work the same way.  They change things by the power of the sword, by having power over those you want to submit to a certain way of life. The kingdom of God doesn’t share that value at all and never wins people by having power over them, or by affecting behavior from the outside, but comes along side to change them from the inside-out.   300 years into the church’s history, it was working, and thousands of people were coming to Christ because these Christians were so different.   When the plague hit a town and everyone fled, the Christians would stay and take care of the dying, even though they would sometimes die in the process.  They would also go to their deaths praising Jesus, to the disappointment of those in the Coliseum who wanted to be entertained by their deaths.  The were said to be against “family values” because, when Roman fathers would leave out their newborn daughters to die on a hill (because they needed male heirs and women weren’t valuable, especially if you already had one), the Christians would come and rescue them and raise them.   Because of these factors and several others the Church spread like wildfire.

So what happened?  How did it all go wrong?

Enter Constantine. Constantine was in a power dispute with another contending for the crown of Emperor named Maxentius.  Their final battle was in 312AD and Constantine won and became the Emperor of the Roman empire.  Here is where the story gets weird.  Constantine claimed he had seen a vision the night before the final battle.  In the vision he has seen the “Chi Rho” symbol in the sky and heard the words, “In this sign conquer.”  The next day he had the symbol painted on the shields and swords and went out and killed his enemy. And led by the “symbol of Christ,” and became Emperor.  He was apparently so thankful to this “god” who helped him kill his enemies and win the power of the emperor that he legalized Christianity and began the process wherein Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Suddenly, those who had always, and were supposed to always, operate in the power of the Cross and coming under people, now had the power of the sword and could win by taking power over people.  This was the day the church gave into the temptation Jesus overcame on the mountain when Satan offered him the kingdoms of the world…without having to suffer or serve or be rejected.  They gave into doing things like a Caesar because it’s so much easier than the way of Jesus.  The God who defined himself by suffering for his enemies was changed and turned into more of a pagan god who would take power over his enemies and kill them. They stopped imitating the suffering servant and became like the ones who had persecuted them.

This symbol on my arm reminds me of the most beautiful story every told.  It reminds me of the greatest way to live, demonstrated by the greatest man who ever lived.  It reminds me of this God-man coming to live a different way and show us a different way to live.  It reminds me of why I’m on the planet and who I’m here to resemble and represent.  It reminds me of the crucified and risen Lord who is the Messiah of Israel and therefore the world’s true King.  It also reminds me of how wrong things can go when I mix that story with stories and values that pollute it.  It reminds me to look again at the real Jesus instead of what many have turned him into.  It reminds me of what happens when you mix Jesus in with politics, or religion, or anything else that makes Jesus into something he had nothing to do with when he was here. 

I need to remember both sides of that story and both sides of that symbol.

Great little video from Greg Boyd on Constantine says it better than I can:

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