Re-Branding and the Marks of the Apostolic

Saint Francis of Assisi

Re-branding and the Marks of the Apostolic

Early Sunday morning in June of 2022, I was awakened to find myself in an encounter. Suddenly, this flaming cross appeared, and it was coming toward me. This cross began to “brand” me on my hands, feet, and side. Then I realized this burning cross was somehow alive. I also understood this cross represented a people who were living martyrs burning with the testimony of Jesus. It was one of my most unusual experiences, and it was hard to comprehend why I would be branded this way. Finally, this Scripture came to me after some need for prayer and contemplation.

Galatians 6:17 From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

The Greek word for “mark” is “Stigmata” the Greek can mean to be scared, marked, or branded with a hot iron. Stigmata means the marks or brands pricked or burnt upon the body. Greeks would refer to this branding when enslaved people were sometimes branded by their masters to prevent escape, or idol worshippers would brand themselves with the name of their god. Paul indicates to us in other letters, like Romans, that he is an apostle and slave of Christ. Earlier in the letter to Galatians, he declares that he is no longer alive but that Christ is re-living his life through Paul. The marks that Paul bears are the sufferings of his apostolic ministry that also give witness to the Crucified Christ re-living the cross-shaped life through Paul as an apostle and slave marked by sufferings. 

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved and gave himself for me. 

I believe God is Re-branding His people to bear and burn with His image as He abides in and through His Bride. If the current brand of Christianity does not bear the brand marks of the Crucified Christ, we are in need of re-branding. Not the re-branding that comes through marketing, but being marked by the burning passion of the wounds of Christ.

We need an outpouring of repentance to see the King who rules with a crown of thorns is drawing us near. What if the witness of the Crucified Christ that would remove the veil from Israel is that the pierced Bride would embody Christ with wounds, and that would be as light shining in the darkness. The Word of God shines through the Bride, so she becomes a word of God.

Rev 1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

The witness and evidence of a Bride who bears his wounds release the power of the eternal victory of the Lamb.

The brand of Christianity that does not carry his wounds is fading, and there is a re-branding of a people that embody the Cruciform God. There is a burning flame with a cross, and it is a people who are burning living martyrs.

They are burning bushes with the cruciform image of Christ in the midst of them that will bring others into a burning bush experience in dry places.

The Witness of St. Francis of Assisi 

History tells us of an incredible encounter of Saint Francis of Assisi with the Crucified Christ. As he prayed during the morning of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), he beheld a figure coming toward him from the heavens. St. Bonaventure, minister-general of the Franciscans from 1257 to 1274, wrote:

“As it stood above him, he saw that it was a man and yet a Seraph with six wings; his arms were extended and his feet conjoined, and his body was fixed to a cross. Two wings were raised above his head, two were extended as in flight, and two covered the whole body. The face was beautiful beyond all earthly beauty, and it smiled gently upon Francis. Conflicting emotions filled his heart, for though the vision brought great joy, the sight of the suffering and crucified figure stirred him to deepest sorrow.

Pondering what this vision might mean, he finally understood that by God’s providence, he would be made like the crucified Christ, not by bodily martyrdom but by conformity in mind and heart. Then as the vision disappeared, it left a greater ardor of love in the inner man and no less marvelously marked him outwardly with the stigmata of the Crucified.”

The Greek word stigma means “a scar left by a hot iron: brand,” according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition). Stigmata—the plural form of the same Greek word—can also mean “bodily marks resembling the wounds of the crucified Christ.” This provides an essential background for understanding the mysterious phenomenon of the stigmata in Christian history.

When Francis saw this, he was overwhelmed, and his entire being was flooded with joy and sorrow. According to Saint Bonaventure, Francis rejoiced because of the gracious way Christ looked upon him under the appearance of the Seraph. Still, the fact that he was fastened to a cross pierced his soul with a sword of compassionate sorrow.”

The focus for Francis is not on the physical marks he received but on the piercing of his heart as he encountered the beauty of the Cross. The Seraphs are the burning ones surrounding the throne, crying, Holy, holy, holy! The beauty of the wounds of the Lamb brings a simultaneous piercing and healing of our hearts that causes us to burn with His passion. Our hearts begin to burn with the passion of the Lamb, who was pierced for all creation. This passion purifies and awakens us from slumber apathy to see the One who was pierced for us.

It is the burning ones who carry the coals from the altar that purged to the lips of Isaiah and cleansed his heart. The coals from the altar altered Isaiah to be ruined and consumed. The revelation of the Cruciform and Triune God compels the Seraph to cry Holy, Holy, Holy. The disclosure of the Holiness of the Crucified Christ reigning from the throne purifies us and consumes us in God, who is a consuming fire. 

…Did our hearts not burn within us while he talked to us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? Luke 24:32

Their fiery wings, as depicted here, suggest the flaming intensity of God’s love that Christ communicated to Francis, which set Francis’ heart afire. The word seraphic is often used to describe Francis’ passionate style of relating to God and is usually applied to the whole Franciscan Order, sometimes called the Seraphic Order.  

It is intriguing that the Hebrew word for Seraphim is the same for the fiery serpents that bit Israel in the wilderness in Numbers 21:6-9

⁶ Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. ⁷ And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸ And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” ⁹ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

In the wilderness, Israel suffered the fiery poison of the serpents because of their complaints and needed the lifting up of the bronze serpent to live. John, in his gospel, compares the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross to the lifting up of the serpent.

Metaphorically speaking, just as the bronze serpent physically saved them from the serpent's poison, the lifting up of the Crucified Christ eternally saved us from the serpent's bite.

May the lifting up of the Cross burn us and purify us entirely of the bite of the serpent and the satanic that poison us with the venom of a cross-less and blood-less kingdom void of power and life.