[present perfect] project wordle

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[the mystery of the cross] author’s closing thoughts

Thanks for featuring The Mystery of the Cross as your online study. I appreciate your attention to my book, and enjoyed reading the entries. Even in this electronic age, an author only gains limited opportunities to reader responses. So this was a treat!

I decided to write The Mystery of the Cross for two reasons. First, as a part-time art historian, I wanted to research Christianity’s central image through the centuries, observing its visual transitions. Second, as a Christian I wanted to learn how early believers related to this sign. Did it influence their daily lives and worship? And if so, how?

As I worked on the book, I received much more than answers to these questions. Several times I thought, I don’t know if readers will get anything from this book, but it’s definitely affecting me. These rewards—and a fast-approaching deadline—sustained me through the sometimes tedious research. This included tracking down obscure books, managing conflicting opinions, and verifying minutia. However, after wading through research, the personal rewards emerged. I noticed the following:

A sacred appreciation. I’ve been a Christian since childhood and Passion Week seems as familiar to me as my own face. Consequently, through the years I’ve taken for granted the depth of Christ’s suffering. Reading details about the crucifixion process renewed my gratitude for his sacrifice and reshaped my approach to the recent Easter season.

A stirring within. Working as an author and art historian, it’s easy for Christianity and its images to become a project instead of a personal belief system. Spending months examining the core personality (Christ) and message (salvation) of the cross stirred my personal faith. I recognized my own need for spiritual renewal. I’m now pursuing spiritual transformation through a Forty Days venture. (See the Notes from Judith blog at www.judithcouchman.blogspot.com.)

An altered perspective. I look at cross images differently than before the book. I think about how early Christians revered images of the cross, focusing on the Savior who died for them. I try to do the same. I live in a culture that doesn’t need to sacrifice for its spiritual beliefs, and I want to remember and honor those who did (and still do). The cross meant everything to them. How can I increase its meaning to me?

One of my favorite biblical characters is Simon of Cyrene, who strolled into town after a day’s work and unintentionally contributed to history’s greatest story. Forced to shoulder Christ’s cross, Simon probably protested and resented the painful imposition. But carrying the cross, in close proximity to the Lord, changed him. He believed.

Encountering the cross can change us, too.

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[the mystery of the cross] part 7: enduring mysteries

The Cross and its Eternal Power

Pope Gregory the Great said that the cross was set up for the salvation of mortals and stands as both a mystery and an example whereby the Divine power takes effect, an example whereby man’s devotion is excited. He continues by saying that redemption further procures the power of following the way of the cross by imitation and he concludes by asking the question of how shall we share in the name of Christ except by being inseparably united to Him, Who is, as He Himself asserted, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”?

The cross remains as much a mystery today as it did 2,000 years ago when Christ Himself hung suspended from it. I can imagine Paul as he sat penning the words of 1 Corinthians 1:23 as he reminded his readers that the cross would be a stumbling block to the Jews and an absurd and foolish thing to the Greeks. To some today, the cross is an object of decoration to be worn on clothing or on oneself as a tattoo or a piece of jewelry. It is also seen as something to be hated and cleansed from society’s view through lawsuits and protests. Not far from my own home, about an hour or so, stands a small white cross as a part of a memorial to several firefighters who gave their lives in sacrifice and service to their neighbors and community while fighting a fire in a local factory. This memorial has recently come under attack and has now come under threat because of a lawsuit. This is only one of several such lawsuits in the United States by atheist or agnostic groups, or simply those who think that personal expression of any faith should be relegated to activity behind closed doors with no free expression in public places.

I recently returned from a mission trip to Russia, where for 40 years the free expression of religion, and in many cases the private expression of faith, has been oppressed but is now finding new life. In the book The Mystery of the Cross, Judith Couchman explores the notion of the cross that rises again. The cross has long been present in Russian society because it stands upon the tops of the spires of the Orthodox Church cathedrals but with the dominance of Communism, it was seldom thought about by the general populace as something other than a decorative ornament.

However, now that Communism has lost its dominant control over society, the cross is taking on new meaning as the evangelistic church is making its meaning known once again. Couchman states that like Christ, we want to rise up, we need renewal. Since the dawn of early Christianity the cross has represented this longing and determination to regain life. Like the Church in Russia, the soul desires to rise up and the cross symbolizes this desire. For those Christians in Russia and its block nations during the Cold War area the cross certainly inspired a will to survive and gave hope that despite the oppression they had long had to endure the soul of those who clung to it would rise during adversity and would transform again and again.

For 2000 years the cross has had to endure. From the reigns of the early Roman emperors, the invasions of various pagan nations, the oppression of those who would use the Church for their own gain during the Middle Ages and the Spanish Inquisition and the rule of Communism over much of the world, the cross and those who would follow it truly and rightly have had to endure and have always been given the strength to withstand and to stand once again.

As we in America see the beginnings of this type of oppression from a very small but very vocal minority who garner the support and opinion of government, we to must continue to draw strength from the cross so that we can stand and rise again as it will continue to stand again, and again.

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[the mystery of the cross] part 6: ways to worship

the cross in early church life

As we have been exploring Judith Couchman’s The Mystery of the Cross over the last few weeks, I have been transformed by images of the cross. I have to say that I was not prepared for the way this section would change my perspective on acts of worship. As I read, I was in awe at how God used the words on the pages to help me better understand and appreciate my own Lutheran tradition. It was by no accident that I was given this section to reflect on!

Before Christianity was an accepted religion, places of worship were simple – and many times hidden. As Christianity became more and more accepted, places of worship became more open – and more extravagant. This section talks a lot about the extravagant ways in which early Christians portrayed the cross in their worship spaces. That got me thinking – so many of our churches have gone extravagant. The buildings, the programs, the music, the technology, the worship services. We have spent much time and money focusing on how we make our places of worship “worthy” to be called “God’s house.” This translates to our own selves as well – we think we have to bring our best selves to God so that we feel worthy to stand in God’s presence. I can remember times in my own life where I felt unworthy of God’s love. Times when I stayed far away from church because I felt like I wasn’t good enough to be there. Like my faith wasn’t strong enough or I was too much of a mess to go to the holy place. Or maybe I was afraid that my mess would show up and everyone around me would know that I wasn’t worthy. And then, there was that time when I was on vacation without any “church clothes” so I didn’t go to church that Sunday even though I really wanted to.

And yet the message of the cross is anything but ornate. The cross was simple – there was nothing extravagant about it (except of course, God’s love portrayed on it.) In fact, when you think about it, the way that extravagant love was portrayed was anything but beautiful. Jesus was literally torn apart at the cross – it was a place filled with dust, skin, blood, and who knows what other kinds of bodily fluids. The cross was the last place anyone wanted to be. Sure, it’s the resurrection from the cross that makes us realize how powerful and incredible God is. God is awesome and God does deserve our best – but the whole message of the cross is that God takes us just as we are. God loves our messy selves just as much as God loves our best selves. The cross looks the same.

That same cross is all over our worship spaces – in the layouts, in the processionals & recessionals, in the bread & the wine of communion, in the pictures around the walls. No matter how ornate we make it, the message of the cross will always be a simple one – God’s extravagant love poured out for us in all of our messiness.

I leave you with this one question: How can we, like the earliest Christians, remember the significance and simplicity of the cross while at the same time worship the awesomeness that is God?

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