A Darker Cross

1.
I am sitting in my grandparents’ pew at St. Isidore Roman Catholic Church in Riverhead, N.Y. I have missed the prompt to kneel. The kneeler flips down onto my small foot as a row of parishioners lowers its pious weight. My shout erupts into the sanctuary like a trumpet blast; I will never forget my grandfather’s face — scandalized, incredulous — as he looks sideways down the pew at me.

I have never doubted my grandfather’s love. Nor, as a consequence of that disrupted reverence, did I begin to harbor any doubts. But his indignation asserted, as loving words never could, the conviction that an event of surpassing importance occurred in the Mass: Jesus Christ had come to be with his people.

All creation, even my pain, was changed by this light. No older than five, I began to understand that the coming of Christ was the bedrock upon which my life must be built.

2.
I am at Rosedale Bible College, standing behind a simple wooden lectern. No longer do I believe what my grandfather believes (or believed) about the Mass. He has dementia; his condition has deteriorated sharply. We have never been able to speak about how my church has no kneelers.

I read aloud: “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (I Cor. 1:18 NIV).

I have stumbled over the cross. But when Christ came to be with his people, he set his face toward Jerusalem. The cross, too, belongs to the bedrock of my life; no one can lay another foundation. So must Christ — and he, crucified — determine the shape of my life, built together with all the church.

3.
I am at Calverton National Cemetery early on Memorial Day, visiting my grandfather’s grave for the first time. He died toward the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; I was not able to attend his funeral. He is buried in a long row of white tombstones, like perfect teeth sticking up from the lower jaw of creation. Yesterday, the Boy Scouts came and picked each tooth with a little flag.

As I draw near, my grandfather’s name and rank become visible, carved into the smooth white stone. So, too, is the simple cross above his name; the Star of David for the sergeant behind him; unblemished blankness for the captain at his left. Up close and squinting, these distinctions are discernible; step back, and they melt into reflected brightness. In the panorama, uniformity prevails. The wages of sin are paid to each, whether to a Star of David, a sergeant, a captain, or a cross. All are equal in death, united in this graveyard by little flags and white tombstones.

When I die, I hope the stonecutter forebears every stroke of the chisel allotted for name and rank. I want him to work at darkening the cross, so mourners can see it a long way off. I know that my grandfather wanted to be buried at Calverton, but I trust that the man who glared at me during Mass would likewise have appreciated a darker cross. By the light of that cross, even my grandfather’s death is changed.

The cross proclaims a better hope than flags and white tombstones. It declares that Jesus Christ has purchased us at the price of his blood. It assures us that the new covenant in his blood will endure forever, long past the day when creation’s teeth are worn to stubs. It holds forth a life that no graveyard can deliver; it promises fellowship and peace that cannot be found among the dead. God has certified these promises to us with an empty tomb. Its former occupant lives today, enthroned in glory.

I walk back to the car, straining to keep silent under the pious weight of an awareness that I, too, stand in need of the cross. The distinctions between soldiers and nonresistant Christians have sometimes obscured this fact, which unites all our mortal clay in the equality of death. My salvation — any salvation — rests on Jesus Christ, and not what I have done (or left undone) in his name.

My hope is in him alone, and so I set my face to follow him from Calverton to Jerusalem. This is the shape and significance of my life, together with all the church. More than any tombstone, my living body must bear a dark cross gladly into the world.

One Response

  1. This article is a poignant reminder of the cornerstone of our faith. May we all resolve to know nothing except Christ and him crucified!

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