Seeing The Cross in You and Me

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One of the most interesting architectural features of our sanctuary is the large wood and

metal cross that hangs from the ceiling above the chancel area. It’s not easily or

immediately visible, however, because it blends in with the latticework that soars above

the choir loft all the way up to the skylights. Someone was commenting to me this week

that it’s curious that the cross, the central symbol of our Christian faith, doesn’t stand

out more prominently in the front of our sanctuary.

I remember thinking the same thing when I arrived here as pastor three years ago. But I

also realized that from where I stand on Sunday mornings, facing the congregation, the

cross in the back of the sanctuary, above the balcony, stands out strongly, starkly. You

can’t miss it.

This got me to wondering whether the architects were trying to communicate something

about how we enter into worship and how we leave worship. I wonder if we enter into

worship on Sundays, so formed and shaped by the ways of the world around us, that

the cross, though definitely present among us, is difficult for us to discern, to distinguish.

But maybe it is through our worship together—through the practice of singing our

praises to God, offering our prayers to God, sharing our gifts to the glory of God, and

listening to and pondering together the Word of God, especially words of Jesus like

“whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke

14:27)—that the countercultural, self-giving, other-serving way of Christ, the way of the

cross, becomes much more clearly seen as standing out in stark contrast to the

consumptive, self-serving ways of the world. And then maybe we can leave worship

with a much clearer view of the cross we are called by Christ to take up in this world.

Christians are called not to blend in, but to stand out. That’s what the word “holy”

means—set apart, different from. Our worship together is one of the ways we are

formed and shaped as God’s holy people, so that whether anyone else in all the world

ever sees the cross in our sanctuary, they at least will see the cross in you and me.