Why Do Christians Display the Cross?

Pastor Ross Anderson

One summer my family hosted a Bible club for neighborhood children.  One of the craft projects involved making a cross-shaped leather necklace.  I was intrigued to learn that one family did not allow their children to do that particular craft.  What was it about the symbol of the cross that they found inappropriate?

Christians of the historic, biblical tradition, display the cross because it was indispensable to God's plan of salvation.  We wear the cross because of our immeasurable gratitude for what Jesus suffered there on our behalf.

The Bible declares: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).  Colossians 2:14-15 describes what happened on the cross: "God canceled the record that contained the charges against us.  He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ's cross.  In this way, God disarmed the evil rulers and authorities.  He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross of Christ."

Some object that Christians worship the cross.  This is simply not true.  To understand our perspective, consider an analogy.  Several times each year, the Boy Scouts place American flags in front of many homes.  One neighbor of mine flies the flag every day.  In spite of this prominent display, I'm pretty sure these people don't worship the flag.  Rather, they are proud to hoist the flag as a symbol of the most important values we share as Americans.

Likewise, Christians display the cross as a symbol of our dearest and most deeply held beliefs.  The death of Jesus is at the heart of Christianity.  The apostle Paul wrote, "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...." (1 Corinthians 15:3).  In the same letter, he wrote, "When I first came to you I didn't use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God's message.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (2:2).

One theory of Jesus' atonement for sins emphasizes his agony in the garden of Gethsemane.  But the Bible puts the focus squarely on the cross.  It was on the cross, not in the garden, that Jesus exclaimed, "It is finished!" (John 19:30).  Colossians 1:19-20 makes it plain that salvation was accomplished not in the garden, but on the cross: "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things,...by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." 

Someone once asked, "If your mother was killed by a handgun, would you wear a little gold revolver around your neck?"  That's not an accurate comparison.  Jesus' death was neither an accident nor a mere murder.  He went to the cross willingly (John 10:18).  It was an act of his love for us (1 John 3:16).  Jesus' life blood, spilled on the cross, paid the price demanded by God's justice for all my wrongdoing.  1 Peter 2:24 says it all: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree." 

That's why the apostle Paul wrote so passionately in Galatians 6:14, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!"  In light of all the Bible says about the cross, I don't understand how anyone who loves Jesus would not feel the same way.  The cross is an honored symbol of the Savior's tremendous atoning work.

No, we do not worship the cross.  We worship the one who freely gave his life there to forgive all our sins.  No, the cross is not a morbid relic.  I display the cross to remember and give honor to what Jesus did for me.