Kissing the Cross

The wood beam is held up high. So much tradition is behind Christianity.

Wood we use to recall that Jesus hung upon a tree. And the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil hung from a wooden perch too. The parallel is well-known to the Christian. Adam, the first of humans, took from wood; Jesus gave Himself to us from wood.

When we kneel and kiss the wood, do we erase the kiss of Judas? Or are we acknowledging our guilt in betraying what we may become, sons of God, by our other desires? Is our kiss out of love or fear? Judas may have feared following a false god. We today profess love for the one who through His death transforms death into a new way of being. He creates a new form of living, in communion with the unseen God.

We have something science does not fully grasp: faith in that which is sensed by the inner peace of self. How can we prove something invisible exists? We prove it by seeing its effects that are visible. So too, the Christian’s invisible communion is seen in the behavior of self-sacrifice and of love. Survival doesn’t account for love that gives even to the point of death to preserve those who are loved.

When we see the wood today, do we think of the way in which wood is used in homes to shelter us? Or do we see the wood as a form of condemnation, of humility, or shame which is too much to embrace? Do we see this wood as a birth canal that, through pain, brings forth new life?

Wood is not just wood, but rather is able to be carved into tables to eat at, benches to sit upon, or even burned to keep us alive in the cold. Is the Christian then not correct to reflect upon the wood that carved out a path to salvation?

Christians celebrate what most on the outside of belief would call absurd–the Divine embracing death.

Why do so many believe in that which others mock? Surely all those who believe lack intelligence say those who don’t trust anything which cannot be seen. And still many people in all professions, some which require a great deal of intellect, kneel before a cross and kiss it. Traditions may make us do strange things, but to profess a belief in the unseen is not attributed to mere traditions.

So why kiss a cross? Is it a call only some respond to because they are listening? Is it because of a need inside only the cross can fill? Is it a hope that hate will not overcome love? Is the wood used to bring death transformed into redemption, as the tree that promised knowledge turned into confusion to what ought to be done? Do we understand suffering to be redemptive until we kiss a cross?

Those who wrote the story of Christianity understood suffering. We see their courage in the face of mockery. We gather strength to believe when the easier part would be to deny.

Wood is that which we kiss today, but we do not kiss the wood in vain. Wood has the roughness of human will and the toughness of Divine resolve.

We have an advantage that we know the outcome of the kiss — two days later the sun rises on an empty tomb for those who profess Christ. We do not kneel in vain.