by Evangelina Dongell, Contributor
Curved edges, pastel colors and bubbly calligraphy. This is the cross on which Jesus Christ died. He did not die on this particular cross in the Bible, of course, but in Hobby Lobby, churches, kids’ coloring books and your aunt’s kitchen. This is the cross glanced at as it hangs above the family dinner table while a cousin passes the mashed potatoes down the line. It’s the cross tattooed on a forearm as a reminder to repent, and the cross we suppose is a kinder way to approach the tragic death of the One we call Lord.
We could talk about secular fashion trends that utilize the cross, such as the coquette aesthetic or early 2000s low-waisted jeans with a cross-bejeweled pocket. Babies wear sweet, wavy crosses on their onesies, young girls have little stumpy cross earrings and homes wear curly crosses on their walls all with the sole purpose of communicating reverence. However, this is a conversation about those who have a different category of reverence for the cross.
It must be a joyful message and leave the staunchness of sadness for Orthodoxy with incense and liturgy. Bury the stink of death and put it to rest because we have hope. This is the cross Christians identify with and are more drawn to today. Although without the stink of death, what does Christianity even mean?
It is a curious idea in Christian society today that it desires to (perhaps unknowingly) infantilize the cross. And within this process, reverence becomes retail. Yet it is a reverence that undoubtedly is watered down and soft to the touch. Fearing the Lord is lost in fabric and colors. It is drowned in florals and delicacies. Let reverence sting you. Let it bite.
A little rabbit and an egg resting beside a stubby cross now represent the agonizing, spirituality-horrid, brutal death of God’s son. The message sent out is one of little reverence and little fear. This message may not be what the user wants to express; however, when the cross is blatantly morphed into this depiction of fragility, what else is the consumer meant to expect?
When someone is wearing a little, white, rounded cross necklace, the Crucifixion inherently loses its intensity. Jesus rose again in grandeur and returned with hope and prosperity. However, he died to save our sins, and what are our sins but bloody, perverted and dreadful? Let the man-made cross we use today, to commemorate this moment, be that way too. Let the wood be rough and pointed. Let the dread be carved into its core. Let the cross be something of hope, but not without the memory of how the hope was made.
Hope. This, oddly enough, is what the cross of today’s world is missing. If we lose the darkness, the decay and the despair within the symbol of the cross, we have not traversed through our sins or failings to find hope. We have just made a counterfeit image of goodness. Jesus rising from death is the Peace after chaos. He is the Chaos of light after the chaos of darkness. When the cross is made light of, made childish or palatable, it truly loses sight of the terror that was inflicted upon it.
The cross should be viewed and made available to all people so they can experience the story of Christ. For the death was to spread promise. No one should be denied the right to get a tattoo or wear jewelry conveying that message. However, caution and reverence should be taken into account. Are we letting ourselves be chilled by the pointed angles hanging on the wall, the sharp sting of metal hanging around our necks or the feeling of sins shattered into pieces when we look at our forearms?
Christ lives, yes, but first, Christ died.
