In some theologies, the cross is all that matters in the story of Jesus. I have known it in my own life and I have held that body, beaten and bleeding, for many others.

My theology understands, and even needs, that broken body. The cross is all cleaned up it’s the end of the story. It’s far more powerful for me than the cross. Plenty of people find it disturbing, and for good reason. Who wants to stare at the image of a young man at the height of his distress, in the last throes of a painful death? I’m sure many of you spent a good number of days in Catholic school looking at the crucifix over your teacher’s head, wishing just about any other symbol was hanging on that wall. This man is struggling for his last few breaths and the moment of the crucifixion has been captured and memorialized for believers down through the centuries. He’s suspended in anguish, nails through flesh and bone, a crown of thorns pressed into his head, blood dripping, eyes beleaguered. Sometimes it’s quite graphic-full-bodied suffering in Technicolor. This is a very different symbol, one that shows us Jesus nailed to the cross, broken, bleeding, dying. Instead, Catholics have opted for the crucifix. Roman Catholics are also Christian, but the clean, straight cross isn’t likely to be seen standing ten stories high in their church yards. The cross is a sign of hope and of glorious things to come. It’s a sign of triumph our greatest fear has been defeated. Jesus conquered death and because of that, we will rise again in body and in spirit. He suffered and died on the cross, but that cross became the gateway to everlasting life. Jesus suffered, died and was buried, but on the third day he rose. The cross, in the Christian tradition, is a sign of victory. Adorning almost every Protestant church is a cross-inside, outside, over the altar, in the vestibule, in the minister’s office, and sometimes many stories high on top of the building.

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