More Than a Symbol: Living the Cross Today

Last Sunday we were reminded of Jesus’ challenging words, “Those who would come after me, must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” Today we celebrate the Feast of Exaltation of the Cross, which every so often falls on Sunday. The Cross is the central symbol of our salvation in Jesus Christ. What, then, does the cross mean? In the time of Jesus, the cross was the public capital punishment for insurrection or grave political crimes against society. The cross was a fearful, horrible reality, as definite and concrete to the people then as our own various forms of capital punishment are to us today, like lethal injection and the electric chair. So, when Jesus said “the cross,” the disciples knew exactly what he meant. He meant that his work of preaching and witnessing the kingdom of God would have such social and political consequences that the ruling power would publicly execute him, on the cross, as a criminal, as a revolutionary, as one who sought to bring about a radical change in the established order of society. I am afraid that we tend today to see the cross in a more optimistic way, rather than in all its stark, demanding reality. We wear it as a pretty piece of jewellery. We paint it or sculpt it as a beautiful work of art. Or, we spiritualize it, interpreting it to mean the humble patient acceptance of some interior, private suffering, like an illness or a misfortune or some particular difficulty in life. And we refer to this as “bearing one’s cross.” While this use of the scriptural language of the cross may be quite legitimate in the religious sense of helping to make such sufferings as these bearable and meaningful, we must realize that Jesus meant much, much more than that. He meant the exterior, public suffering that results from Christian involvement in the social, political, and economic issues of society. That is the cross that Jesus was talking about. That is the cross that we must be ready to carry as the cost of being his disciples. And it will only be when we rediscover that scriptural meaning of the cross, in public action on behalf of the world, that we will really be Christians, because then our cross will be the same as the cross of Christ.

Fr. Janusz Roginski S.A.C.