the cross... making things whole

For many people, the sign of the cross has been one of the major signs of Christianity. Catholics and Protestants alike place it in their Bibles and their churches, and immediately remember Jesus upon seeing it. Yet when it comes to placing it on their selves, most non-Catholics reject it. Worse, other religions supposedly of Christian faith even reject it completely!


a sign of life

The sign of the Cross reflects biblical reality and thus reminds us of Jesus’ love for us and His sacrifice for our sake. With His crucifixion, Jesus elevates the cross into a sign of redemption. Just as the fiery serpent set by Moses on a pole became a sign of life and healing for the Israelites (Num 21:9), the Cross becomes a positive sign of life for us whenever we look at it and enter the mystery that it signifies. If we see sin as death and Jesus’ cross as our redemption, than the cross is a reminder of that amazing reality.


body and soul

C.S. Lewis reminds us in his book, Screwtape Letters, about the importance of recognizing the relationship between body and soul. In one of the counsels being provided by the senior devil to a junior tempter on how to successfully tempt people into their side, the senior devil comments that humans can be persuaded that kneeling or any body position makes no difference to their prayers, since they constantly forget that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. As theologians would say, the body is not just a tool, but a part of our humanity.

What we then need to remember when we make the sign of the cross with our bodies is that we are making our bodies a part of our prayer, thus making the prayer a lifting not only of our thoughts but of our complete humanity. And since our bodies affect our souls, the sign of the Cross marks us with the imprint of Christ and signifies the grace of the Redemption He won for us by His sacrifice on the Cross. In other words, each time we make the sign of the cross we declare that we belong to Christ, and the external act becomes an evident sign of what we hope is true of our souls. Now, if you can pray in full, would you still pray partially?


from the very beginning

Most people who reject making the sign of the cross believe it to be an invention of the Catholic Church around 300AD, allegedly to allow pagans to keep their pagan ways despite converting into Christianity. The assertion is that when Constantine became a Christian and wanted his kingdom to be Christian as well, the Church lost its way and turned into a pagan church, thus being Christian by name alone.

The problem with that belief is that the practice was being followed by early Christians way before Constantine became one. The theologian Tertullian, writing in 211AD, said that "In all our travels and movements in all our coming in and going out, in putting of our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupieth us, we [Christians] mark our foreheads with the sign [of the cross]" (The Chaplet [Crown] 3). It was an old custom when he wrote this, and may well have been common even while the apostles were alive.

But the mistake about its history is not even important. The practice is in line with what the Bible teaches. If we are people of faith, then our faith should show in our actions (Jas 2:18), and making the sign of the cross gives witness to what we believe in.


a hypocrite is not a witness

How about making the sign of the cross in public places, like in a restaurant before we eat? Making the sign of the Cross does make things a little obvious.

The Bible cautions us not to be like hypocrites who do things simply to be popular (Mt 6:5). We should all heed this warning, and always be mindful of the things we let others see. But we should also not forget what Jesus is trying to teach us here – i.e. that we should do things out of love and because it is right to do so; not because we want the glory for ourselves versus for God. Going to Church every Sunday to pray as a community, if done for the wrong reasons, can easily fall under hypocrisy too, but that doesn’t mean that we all shouldn’t go to Church.

St. Augustine reminds us sixteen centuries ago that "abuse does not negate use." Improper use of an object does not mean we abandon its proper use. If you are making the sign of the Cross or praying in front of people just to “look good”, please don’t even think about trying. But if you are doing so as a selfless expression of what’s inside you, then let your actions speak and invite others to meet God as well. If you are doing so to be a witness to God’s love and glory, then by all means, let the light of your faith shine and be a guide to others who need to see God (Mt 5:15).

As Cyril of Jerusalem encouraged the Church during the fourth century: "Let us not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Let the cross, as our seal, be boldly made with our fingers upon our brow and on all occasions over the bread we eat, over the cups we drink, in our comings and in our goings, before sleep, on lying down and rising up, when we are on the way and when we are still."


so why the right hand?

That most people are right handed would’ve been a sufficient reason for most people, especially since it is traditionally the hand of blessing and greeting in many cultural settings found even in Scripture. For example, Jesus places the sheep on his right hand but the goats on his left. He Himself is “seated at the right hand of the Father”. And even today, we use our right hand for handshakes and salutes. On the other hand, the left hand is traditionally associated differently. For example, the word “sinister” is derived from the Latin for left-handed. It is thus natural that the sign of the cross be traditionally made with the right hand.


is it even supposed to be a cross?

All this is good, but people would ask, “did Jesus even die on a cross?”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christianity became apostate back in the fourth century, and that the true Church founded by Jesus Christ was corrupted with pagan practices and beliefs. One alleged example of this is Jesus’ death on a cross – i.e. they believe that Jesus died on an upright stake without a cross beam, and with both his hands nailed with one nail above his head.

History proves this belief wrong. As early as 80AD, the Letter of Barnabas mentions how the cross is related to Jesus and our salvation. The same is true when St. Justin Martyr mentions it in his First Apology and Dialogue with Trypho in 150-155AD. We hear the same message from Minicius Felix (185-190AD), Hippolytus (170-235AD), Tertullian (197AD) and many more. The list goes on.

So why do they reject the cross? Their assertion is that in classical Greek the word stauros primarily denotes an upright stake or pole, and they believe there is no evidence that the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures used it to designate a stake with a crossbeam. It is not detailed to the letter in Scriptures, so they believe that there is no other meaning other than it being just an upright stake without a cross beam.

First of all, the New Testament was not written in classical Greek, but in Koine Greek, which has a sense or logic of its own (just as American English is different with British English – but the difference between the two Greeks is greater). In Koine Greek, stauros can mean (1) upright stake with a cross-beam above it, (2) two intersecting beams of equal length, or (3) vertical, pointed stake. All historical records and archaeological findings show that the stauros in the Bible refer to a cross.

We need to remember that the audience of the New Testament were early Christians who already knew that stauros meant a T shaped cross. While Scripture doesn’t provide the details, it is clear that they followed the Roman practice which uses a cross. The evidence for this is abundant.

In 1968, one of the greatest archaeological finds in burial caves at Giv’at ha-Mivtar in Jerusalem involved remains of a man aged 24-28 crucified around 70AD. This is the first time actual physical remains of a victim was discovered, and a notable description of the findings say, "The whole of our interpretation concerning the position of the body on the cross may be described briefly as follows: The feet were joined almost parallel, both transfixed by the same nail at the heels, with the legs adjacent; the knees were doubled, the right one overlapping the left; the trunk was contorted; the upper limbs were stretched out, each stabbed by a nail in the forearm."

We also have archaeological findings more than a century ago of the Palatine crucifix. It is second century graffiti scratched into a wall that includes a caption--not by a Christian, but by someone taunting and deriding Christians and the crucifixions they underwent. It shows crude stick-figures of a boy reverencing his "God," who has the head of a jackass and is up on a cross with arms spread wide and with hands nailed to the crossbeam. Here we have a Roman sketch of a Roman crucifixion, and it is in the traditional cross shape.

There are also literature of antiquity that describes the crucifixion, like a poem written around 3rd century BC mocking crucified criminals, “Punished with limbs outstretched, they see the stake as their fate; they are fastened [and] nailed to it in the most bitter torment." We also have a Lucian who wrote in 2nd century, “" . . . and he will be in full sight of everyone as he hangs there. . . . We must not crucify him low and close to the ground . . . crucify him above the ravine with his hands outstretched."

We also have the French scholar Jean de Savignac’s study of the New Testament papyri in the Bodmer Collection. These papyri rank among the oldest extant texts of the New Testament. They include substantial pieces of the Gospels of Luke and John dating from around 250AD. In these de Savignac found that when the word stauros was written it was written in a contracted form. In this contracted form the au is omitted and the tau and the rho are superimposed. Professor Kurt Aland broadened de Savignac’s research to include other collections of papyri and found the same.

The early Christian writings mentioned earlier in this article also support this. But we don’t even have to go far, as the Scripture itself alludes to a crossbeam. In John 20:25, doubting Thomas speaks where the New World Translation translates as, “Unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." We see here that John refers to hands (plural) and nails (plural) – i.e. as there were two hands, there were also two nails.

Being more specific, we see that God Himself ordered to put a Tau on the foreheads of righteous people (Ezekiel 9:4,6). Note that the original Hebrew of Ezekiel shows that God ordered to specifically put a Tau sign, versus the usual English translation of "a mark". If the cross is a purely pagan practice, this would mean God wants the righteous to be pagans. But it is not, which is why it is prefigured even in the Old Testament.


a great inheritance

The cross is one of the greatest inheritances we have as Christians. It is a great reminder of our salvation that springs from God’s infinite love for us, and a seal that serves as a declaration of our Christian identity – i.e. we are God’s! Let us embrace this inheritance and allow it to direct us to God.


***consolidated/edited from various sources