The Cross – Just an Accessory, Or a Declaration?

Picture an aristocratic woman during the French Revolution accenting her attire for the day with a necklace on which hangs a miniature guillotine. A lovely damsel in the Old West wearing a chain around her neck bearing a replica of a hangman’s gallows. Or a politician campaigning with a tiny electric chair pinned to his lapel.

 

Hideous, right? Gruesome? Even sadistic? But in a sense, that’s what happens whenever someone decides, purely as a fashion accessory, to don a chain from which hangs a cross. These days, wearing a cross too often is merely a stylistic garnish giving little or no consideration of what the cross meant 2,000 years ago – and what it has come to signify over the centuries since.

 

A cross was utilized for capital punishment, a cruel, torturous method of execution employed by the ancient Persians, Carthaginians and Romans. People living in those times could not have imagined that image as garish ornamentation.

 

This was the form of the cross
favored by St. Francis of Assisi.

Before anyone misunderstands what I’m about to say, I’m not being critical in any way of the many folks who wear a cross as a symbol of their faith in Jesus Christ. Like the Star of David for Jews, the cross has deep meaning for Christians, a declaration of devotion to Jesus.

I have a cross on a small chain myself I received a gift, but other than my wedding ring, I’m not much for wearing jewelry. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate its significance. Were it not for the cross and Jesus’ surrender to be crucified, followed by His resurrection, we would not have forgiveness of sin. We'd not have been redeemed and made right with God. We would have no hope of eternal life. And we wouldn’t be able to experience spiritual rebirth in this life, which Jesus talked about in John 3:3, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

 

So, when I see someone displaying a cross, I wonder whether they’re a follower of Christ, too. Because the cross – that instrument of death utilized on a hill in Jerusalem called Golgotha – is no trivial matter, not an icon for meaningless personal adornment.

 

Writing to the church in Galatia, the apostle Paul expressed well the overwhelming import of the cross. “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

 

Jesus Himself declared, “anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:38-39). In perhaps another setting Jesus expressed similar words: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

 

That doesn’t mean we also must be nailed to a cross literally. But following Christ does involve dying to self, setting aside our personal agendas and interests to make His will our top priority. This is why Paul could write, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer life, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). When we become reborn in Christ, our “death” to self allows Him to live in us.

 

Clearly, displaying the cross on our person shouldn't be taken lightly. The writer of Hebrews said it well: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

 

Here’s what Jesus accomplished through His death on the cross: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Paul the apostle summed it up this way: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Think on that for a while. 

 

What about those who don’t value the cross any more than they do the trinkets stashed in their jewelry boxes? There have always been the skeptics, and there always will. As Paul observed, “For, as I have often told you before and now say even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18).

 

He also soberly stated, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). And why is that? The apostle offered this honest appraisal: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins…. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 5:17-20).

 

Embracing the truth about the cross – and Jesus Christ – enables us to have an eternal relationship with God, along with access to freedom and an abundant life the non-believing world around us can’t comprehend. Consider these words: 

    “When you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of our sinful nature, God made you alive in Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulation, that was against us and stood opposed to us; he took it away nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:13-15). 

Identifying the Real Enemy

These days it seems we have no shortage of enemies. There’s the network of radical Islamic terrorists motivated by unfathomable hatred. Then there are perpetrators of gun violence that take the lives of thousands each year. If you’re a liberal politically, conservatives are the enemy. And for conservatives, it’s the liberals. For football teams, the enemy consists of the players on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

We could list many other “enemies” worth considering, but I can’t help but wonder: Are we failing to focus on the real enemy, the one that lurks in our own back yards?

In a “Pogo” comic strip from years back, the namesake possum declares, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The context for the ironic quip, used for Earth Day both in 1970 and 1971, was mankind’s self-inflicted environmental problems. However, we could apply this reasoning to other aspects of life as well.

Many people suffer from health problems brought on by their own bad habits – smoking, excessive consumption of alcohol, chemical abuse, unhealthy diets, lack of proper exercise. Yes, it’s sad when they encounter disease and chronic illness, but in many cases, they were their own worst enemies.

Plenty of individuals find themselves weighed down by great emotional distress brought on by bitterness, anger, unwillingness to forgive, jealousy, envy, fear and anxiety. These reactions to life’s circumstances are understandable to an extent, but when we harbor destructive feelings, embracing them like dear friends, then whose fault is that? We’ve found the enemy – it’s us.

Throughout the Bible one of the undergirding messages is the consequence of focusing on self. It started with Adam and Eve, the first – but hardly the last – humans to declare, “I want what I want – and I want it NOW!” They also were the first in attempting to protect “self.”

When God discovered they had ignored His instructions and sampled fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam became the first “buck-passer.” Confronted by God about this act of disobedience, Adam quickly replied, “This woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree – and I ate it” (Genesis 3:12). He not only blamed Eve, but in essence he was telling God that He was responsible. “It was that woman You created, God! Don’t blame me.”

Then Eve, quickly grasping the blame-game strategy herself, told God, “The serpent (Satan) deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13). Long before the Flip Wilson character, Geraldine, uttered the words, Earth’s first woman was declaring, “The devil made me do it!”

Many years later, not much has changed. We still wrestle grandly with admitting mea culpa, Latin for “it’s my fault.” Or as younger people say in their vernacular, “My bad!” We see it in high-ranking politicians, who deny knowledge of any wrongdoing when scandals arise or accuse the opposing party of disabling their good intentions.

Business leaders, celebrities, star athletes and others follow the same tactics when caught in ethical, legal or moral failures. “I didn’t do it!” they say in their own defense, knowing full well that yes, they did.

But we don’t have to be headliners to wrangle with this pernicious enemy that will never go away – self. Marriages die and families are destroyed because spouses decide they must have what they want, even if it exacts a great cost on everyone else involved. Even among so-called followers of Christ, we often hear the excuse, “I know God wants me to be happy.” Where, exactly, does it say that in the Scriptures? (Unless you subscribe to the Bible as interpreted and twisted by the health-and-wealth, prosperity evangelists.)

In fact, again and again God in His Word affirms, as Pogo discovered, “We have met the enemy – and he is us.” This is why we’re repeatedly exhorted to deny the insistent demands of self. Jesus told His followers, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). In other words, be willing to die to ourselves, our selfish desires and determination to have it our way.

The sixth chapter of Romans explains it’s not a matter of seeking to repress our self-oriented motives, but rather to surrender them entirely and exchange them for the new spiritual life we’re offered through Jesus Christ: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too many live a new life” (Romans 6:4), and “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” Romans 6:11).

Whether it’s an Islamic extremist making the arrogant, horrific decision to take the lives of innocent “infidels,” a political leader resolving to do anything – whatever it takes – to attain a desired elective office, or a husband or wife opting to cast sacred vows aside in their “pursuit of happiness,” ultimately there’s one common enemy: Self.

Sadly, as I’ve learned so well in my own life, self doesn’t die easily. But if we’re wishing to experience the fulfilling, fruitful life God promises and desires for each of us, the only way is to die daily to self and appropriate the life we have in Christ.