“Keep your eyes on the crucifix; for Jesus without the cross is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus is a burden without a reliever.” -Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Why do we venerate the cross, and more specifically, the crucifix? Why do we memorialize the death of God through the depiction of His death?
Many Protestant denominations favor an empty cross as a way of emphasizing Christ’s Resurrection rather than the moment of crucifixion. There is nothing wrong with displaying a plain cross, and this emphasis is well-intentioned. True enough, the Resurrection was Christ’s crowning moment in His conquest over sin and death.
However, in considering the Resurrection, there is no looking past the crucifixion. Nothing shows the hypostatic union more clearly than the fact that Our Lord was crucified and rose from the dead on the third day, and there is no Resurrection without the passion and death.
The crucifix is more than a reminder of the profound suffering that Jesus experienced. It is also a powerful reminder of Christ’s human nature.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. (Nicene Creed)
Christ experienced infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood like us. He wept in sadness like us. He knew joy and anger and hunger and thirst like us. And on the cross, He bled like us.
But it is not enough to lament the death of Our Lord and move on. It is vital that we who were redeemed by His blood recognize His death as the greatest act of love imaginable.
In the crucifix, we are confronted with a raw truth. He did not die just for the righteous. He died for all of us and for all of our sins, too. Jesus willingly bore the burden of every sin that ever was and ever will be committed, and He carried that burden to the cross out of love for each and every one of us.
It is by His death on the cross that the world’s ransom was paid, and we were redeemed of our viciousness. It is by His crucifixion that we are even capable of reaching heaven.
We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You, because by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world.
Before Christ, the cross was a symbol of humiliation, abject misery, and death for the most deplorable and undignified. Through His death and resurrection, He transformed it into a symbol of love, redemption, and conquest over sin and death.
“‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?'” (Matthew 16:24-28)
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