Interesting thoughts from Fr. Stephen’s blog.
“The Orthodox Tradition, as it developed in ancient Syria, had a great devotion to the Cross of Christ. It was believed by the Orthodox in Syria that the Shekinah glory of God, which had once dwelt in the Ark of the Covenant and filled the Temple in Jerusalem, came to reside in the Cross following Christ’s death and resurrection. There was thus a very deep and profound devotion for the Cross (any Cross) within Syrian Orthodox practice.”
Fr. Stephen
This really jumped out at me because it is, by definition, it is the Shekinah Glory that sets the cross of Jesus apart from all other crosses (including our own) and this because Jesus has ascended onto the Most Holy Throne of God (there are no shades of gray with God – while ” opinion” changes over time, God remains the same through eternity).
“It serves, I think, as a reminder that the Cross we wear from our Baptism, the sign of the Cross that we make when we pray, and the Cross wherever it is depicted and displayed, should be approached with great reverence and care. It is not (as the popular culture would make it) jewelry for the decoration of our bodies nor mere art. It is the sign of our salvation and the mystery of its power was ever held in great reverence by early Christians (and everywhere to this day by Orthodox Christians).”
Fr. Stephen
To be sure, the cross is much more than just an external sign. It is the shofar blast (the last trumpet call) that heralds the beginning of God’s new creation (accessible to anyone anywhere, irrespective of creed or colour). It stands outside space and time, beyond the boundaries of “system”.
But for Satan it is the end. Even death has no hold on those who stand under it’s light (because of WHO hangs on it). Knowing this we ask.
Does death have any meaning other than the perfecting of that which has already begun? What can we achieve in this life that we can’t achieve in the next?
While the cross is always a profound paradox, it really is no mystery at all. Evil has been cast down into itself, but who can see it, who can see it?
September 15, 2009 at 12:18 pm |
Ed’s notes:
It’s not the cross as such, but Who hangs on the cross that makes all the difference.
September 19, 2009 at 3:03 am |
This one stark image sums up how the cross was spread across the world–such became inevitable when the church was coopted by the imperial Roman state.
A “holy” empire being the ultimate oxymoron. Empires ALWAYS mean and create mountains of corpses.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel13.html