The Christian Cross is bleeds with symbolism. Today, this Friday, is called Good Friday. It is the day that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. The cross now symbolizes the atonement of man to God.
However, it’ adoption has a rich history of politics, lust, goodness, and holiness. Below is an excerpt of an interpretation called the “Cross of Christ”. Click on that title to read the full article. It is well written and even provocative. Consider this: Jesus lived the crucifiction leaving us the symbol to metaphorically die to our selfish selves to be at one with God – atonement (at one ment).
There is a long history of Christians using the symbol of the cross in superstitious and mystical ways. The earliest Christians seem to have repudiated the use of the cross as a symbol. This because the cross was a despised execution instrument. Would we want to wear a gold-plated noose or gallows had Jesus been hanged, or a gold-plated guillotine had Jesus been beheaded, or a gold-plated electric-chair had Jesus been electrocuted, or a gold-plated syringe had Jesus been lethally injected? It is not difficult to understand their aversion to using the cross as a symbol.
Mankind has always utilized symbols to give expression to their abstract ideas. Early Christians developed a symbol of the fish because the Greek word for fish, ichthus, was used as an acrostic for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” The dove was used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The first two letters of the Greek word for Christ, Christos, were formed together as a chi-rho symbol for Christ. The primary emphasis of early Christian preaching was the resurrection-life of Jesus Christ, for which a symbol was difficult to find. The empty cross became a symbol to show that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and it eventually became the predominant Christian symbol. The first record of its use is found during the second century. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “we mark the brow with the sign of the cross.14 There is also evidence that the gesture of the cross and material objects in the form of a cross were used as early as the second century as ritual fetishes to ward off evil, a practice which was condemned.The cross as a symbol was further entrenched as the primary symbol of Christian religion after the Roman emperor, Constantine, claimed to have seen a flaming cross of light in the sky with the words, “By this sign conquer.” He henceforth merged Christian religion with his political aspirations using the symbol of the cross. Constantine’s mother, Helena, is alleged to have travelled to Palestine in 325 A.D. and she claimed to have discovered the original wooden cross on which Jesus was crucified. The criteria for the claim was that a sick person had grasped the wood and was allegedly healed. Small fragments were transported back to Rome and sold to wealthy believers as priceless relics. There were not enough to supply the demand so they claimed “the miracle of the multiplication of the cross” whereby many more splinters from the cross were allegedly formed. It is reported that wood fragments existed in Roman Catholic churches around the world sufficient to construct many crosses.
The problem with symbols is that since they are more tangible than the abstract reality, religious people tend gradually to superstitiously worship the symbol and lose sight of the reality on which it is based. This, of course, is the essence of idolatry. Symbols become amulets, magical charms, holy hardware. They are used as fetishes, believed to have magical power to aid or protect when rubbed, worn, or otherwise utilized. Symbols can also become conceptual fetishes, mental objects of irrational reverence and obsessive devotion. A.W. Tozer remarked that idolatry “begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place.” It is this latter practice of using the cross as an ideological idol that we shall continue to explore.
For many centuries the idea of the cross and the action of Christ’s crucifixion have been considered as if they were an on-going living reality. The concept of the cross has been enlivened, empowered, personified and deified…. click here to read more of this article.
The Cross has had many treatments over the centuries of fissures and factions. Look here at many styles of crosses explained in Wikipedia.
