I Hate This Cross

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Cycle A

I have just made a beautiful cross for a Catholic church remodeling project I am doing in Malibu, California. It is made of solid black walnut, and is in the shape of a modified Maltese cross, you know, the one with the flared out ends. I chose the wood for it carefully to accentuate the grain. There is even an intricate burl on the lower portion. I put a hand rubbed finish on it to make it look warm and smooth. It truly is a beautiful cross.

I hate this cross.

I hate it because of what I have to do to it next. This cross is to serve as the main sanctuary crucifix in the church, and so it has to be changed from a cross into a crucifix. I have to attach the corpus, or carved figure of Christ, to the cross. That’s what makes it a crucifix. And I have to do it by actually nailing the corpus to the wood of the cross. I have done this several times before with other crosses, and each time I get a feeling of anxiety while doing it. I hate to nail Jesus to the cross.

You may have heard that during the filming of the movie, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson actually held the nails in place as they were being driven into Jesus’ hands, signifying that his sins, and ours, are what affix Jesus to his cross. It is a humbling thought. Every time I nail the hands and feet of the corpus to the cross I think, “What kind of a God do I have? What kind of a God would suffer so much just for me, so that I have the possibility of being with him forever in heaven, even though it is my sins that put him on that cross?”

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.

The cross has always been the central focus of the church, from the earliest days. The passion narratives were the first stories told by the Christians. When they told the story of the Christ they didn’t start with his birth. In fact, only two of the gospels even mention Jesus’ birth. They started with his passion and death. From early on the Church recognized the significance of Jesus’ death, and they honored it.

I hate this cross because it is too beautiful.

We have sanitized the cross. The cross of Calvary was an ugly thing. Rough and coarse and covered in blood. The crosses we see today are so beautiful we wear them as jewelry. They have lost meaning for most people. Even non-Christians and gang bangers wear them because they like the look of them. But usually the jewelry we wear are crosses, not crucifixes. We wear our crosses on the outside of our clothing. We wear our crucifixes under our clothing, next to our hearts. Why?

Are we afraid to show the world the true nature of our belief? Are we still scandalized by the horror of the truth of our Savior’s suffering? Without the cross there is no Christianity. Some Christians try to remove the cross from their theology. They talk of abundance and prosperity and how loving God will give you all the good things in life. They don’t want to face the reality of the suffering God, because they don’t want to face the reality of their own suffering. It’s almost like the embarrassing secret in the family that everyone knows but nobody talks about.

We hate the cross because of what it calls us to do. Jesus said that if we are to be his disciples we must pick up our crosses every day and follow him. He did not ask us to do anything he himself was not willing to do. If we are to follow the Master we must follow him in everything.

Jesus hated the cross, too. He didn’t want to carry it. He didn’t want to be nailed to it. He didn’t want to die on it. He didn’t want to suffer so much physical pain. He didn’t want to suffer the pain of taking all our sins upon himself. But he did. He asked that the cup be taken from him if that were his Father’s will. But when he realized that the Father wanted him to suffer upon the cross, he accepted that decision and embraced it.

Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.

We don’t go looking for our crosses, either. They just are. The cross is a fact of life, brought upon by the sinfulness of the world. We will have to take up our crosses every day whether we want to or not. The key to Jesus’ statement is not that we will have to take up our crosses but that we are to follow him after doing so. Jesus didn’t want to take up his cross, but he knew that he would have to, and so he made it worthwhile to do so. The cross to Jesus was not a sign of defeat but of victory. The resurrection gave worth to the cross. The hope of our own resurrection gives worth to our crosses.

It’s important that our images are crucifixes, not crosses. We Catholics have bodies on our crosses, because the importance of the cross is not the cross itself but the person on it. We do not shy away from Jesus’ death. We honor it. Jesus didn’t shy away from his own death. And he was glorified because of that. We know that if Jesus had not died on that cross we would not be saved. No matter how horrible that death was, it still had the greatest meaning for all humanity.

The genius of God’s plan of salvation for us is that he has taken the very thing that is the result of our failure – suffering and death – and has turned it into the vehicle of our greatest victory. Jesus was lifted up physically on that cross on Calvary, and because of that he was lifted up in exaltation in heaven. Why not us? If Jesus expects us to follow him on his way of the cross why wouldn’t he also want us to share in his exaltation?

Archbishop Fulten Sheen said that all people are born in order to live. Only one man, Jesus, was born to die. We have a beginning and our purpose is life. Jesus’ purpose was to die, and everything he did in his life led to his death.

And that is why we have a feast of the exaltation of the holy cross. Because without the cross there could be no resurrection. Without death there can be no life. The humiliation of the cross is actually the glory of Christ. If Jesus had not died on the cross he would not have been exalted. Without the cross we will not be exalted, either. And so we honor the cross and what it symbolizes, what it reminds us of. It shows us that ultimately, God wins. Ultimately, we win. A worthless piece of wood has become the sign of our own worthiness.

The cross is the ultimate sign of our obedience to the will of the Father. It was Jesus’ ultimate gift to the Father. And it is Jesus’ ultimate gift to us. In the cross we are truly one with Jesus as he is one with the Father. In the cross is the sign of our own unity with God. We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

And that’s why I love this cross.