The cross.I used to wear a cross once.
All Orthodox are supposed to wear the cross they received at baptism.
That original cross of mine is packed away among my memorabilia, I hope. I did wear a cross for at least 20 years of my adult Christian life—the cross of San Damiano, an ancient icon painted by Serbian Orthodox monks that found its way into a small church in central Italy, dating from the days when Italy was still an Orthodox land. The cross of San Damiano was the icon from which Christ spoke to Francesco of Assisi, ‘Repair My Church which, as you can see, is lying in ruins.’
The cross is something you can't really talk about, when it's the reality of your life. All the jabber and blab about the cross, however eloquent, is still just words. To enter into the reality of the cross is a gift of God. When He grants it to you to suffer, and to suffer in ways you never knew existed, then there is no longer an image outside yourself that really stands for anything much. The whole panoply of Orthodox iconography, in fact, dies away into mere imagery, when the cross is your life.
I know I wanted to communicate something in this post, but it isn't really possible, I know that now. But crossbearers know each other.
Their sanctuary is the time and place where in this world they meet for even a moment, their communion is feeding each other with the broken fragments of their lives that Christ has taken to Himself and returned to them, ‘This is My Body broken for you.’
No matter how big the visual cross, whether it's empty, plain wood, or has an icon of Jesus on it, whether the ceremony were slow and awe-inspiring, or the quick, efficient march that we experience in some contemporary churches, it would be the same.
It can never compare to the reality of being pressed like raw dough with the seal of the true cross, so as to be baked in the oven of tribulations, to come out as pure communion bread. That's our life in Christ, broken but not divided, eaten but not consumed. Christ is in our midst. He is, and ever shall be.
Still, wearing the cross is a witness to others, especially for those who are carrying their internal crosses.
ReplyDeleteYes, Jim, you are right.
ReplyDeleteThis testimony is not to devalue the wearing of a cross per se, but simply to emphasize that such crosses are still only symbols and do not mean the real cross is present in the life of a believer.
When I see someone wearing a cross, man or woman, I immediately attend to them in a more deliberate way, hoping to catch a glimpse in them of the Lord they must be serving. Even for me as a Christian, it puts them 'on the spot'—will the rest of their presence reflect the Truth? Can I depend on them to uphold that Truth? Can I trust them as co-laborers and co-sufferers?
Am I expecting too much? No, I don't think so. If a man or woman wears a cross, one must expect to find a Christian soul in that body, or else the opposite, almost no in-between. Christian, not perfect, Christian, not anti-Christian.
But some wear crosses as a trinket, dangling from neck or ear or even from less honorable places.
When out in the world, though I do not wear a cross or Christian 'witness wear', I show the presence of a servant of God by whistling a well-known Christian hymn—how many times does someone flash a smile at me!—or, because I am a Greek Orthodox, whistle or even chant a Greek kontakion. That lets my friend and co-religionist the green grocer know I'm in his store, and then, when we meet suddenly over the green onions, I don't take him by surprise.
I'd agree with you and with the other Jim. The most important witness is not something instantly externally visible. The guards who arrested Jesus needed someone to tip them off as to which person he was. I can't imagine Jesus or the apostles wearing some jeweled cross (though I've done that; worn a cross ring that was a gift to my Dad from a jeweler who'd heard the gospel through him). Whether or not we wear the cross externally, if we're really the people of Jesus, sooner or later our broken-and-restored lives will reflect his life.
ReplyDelete