Why the crucifix?

Why does St. Paul insist on preaching Christ crucified?

We read in 1 Corinthians that “we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23). So if it’s such a difficult point with Jews and Greeks (the two major groups the Gospel was preached to in the Eastern Roman Empire), why insist on it?

In our own time, it has been an unfortunate trend to replace crucifixes with the so-called “risenfixes” (a cross bearing the risen Christ) or to replace the Cross completely with an image of the resurrected Christ. While there’s nothing wrong with venerating images of the Risen Christ, we lose something important when we start to put the crucifixes away in storage.

The Cross is, first and foremost, the font from which all salvation flows. Were it not for Christ’s death on Calvary, we would not be reconciled to God the Father and would not be able to attain salvation. Yes, the Resurrection is our triumph over death, but there would be no Resurrection without the Cross. In fact, we can see how important the Cross is to Christ when he shows St. Thomas the wounds he bears eternally for our sake. Yes, even in his glorified body, Christ bears the marks of His crucifixion.

The Cross also speaks to us in a way that images of the Resurrection cannot. While we look on images of the Resurrection as promises of our glorified states in heaven, most of us will never know what the Resurrection is truly like while on earth. But most of us do know the Cross.

When we look on the Cross, we are reminded that Christ, in many ways, can understand our pain as human beings. Make no mistake, even though Christ is fully God, his also fully man. Every thorn, every lash, every nail inflicted unimaginable physical pain on Jesus.

Of course, if all the Cross did was remind us that human beings greeted the Son of God’s message of love with torture and execution, it’d be a real downer. And, maybe in today’s world, that’s as far as many of us can see. Maybe some of us see the Cross as a sort of condemnation of human nature--the jealousy, hatred, and cruelty that caused the suffering of God Himself. Truly, the Cross can represent those things and remind us of our sins that so greatly grieve God. That’s not the whole story, though.

What we sometimes forget is that, yes, human beings put Christ on the Cross (both in a proximate and distal sense to use some scientific vocabulary), but Christ is one of us: He is as fully Man as He is fully God. And, what’s even more encouraging (and sometimes a bit scary), is that we’re called to be Christ on that Cross.

We are called to suffer at times out of our profound love for our brothers and sisters, yes. However, we know that, although the world may seem to be against us, most of our friends seem to have abandoned us, and we are going through great trials, God will give us the strength to endure this suffering. And, even though it might be a while, there will be an Easter.