I’m writing this article, not really to make a case for the wearing of crucifixes but in response to blogger Tim Challies’s post, “Why You Should Not Wear a Crucifix.”
As a child, I attended and was baptized in a Baptist church in Kentucky. Baptist churches are stark with absolutely no images of Jesus. I had never seen a stained glass Jesus or even a picture of Jesus in my Sunday school lessons. When I went away to college and attended different churches and different denominations, I was shocked to see not only stained glass windows depicting Jesus, but lifelike paintings of Jesus and even life-sized crucifixes.
The teaching and thinking against Jesus images is two-pronged. First, from the Ten Commandments, we read,
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them...Exodus 20:4-5
At first glance, the verses’ meaning seems pretty clear - don’t make an image and worship it; the baptist understanding would further forbid making a picture or statue of Jesus.
The second argument against images is specifically aimed at crucifixes. The reasoning goes something like, “Why are you keeping Jesus on the cross? He defeated the cross. Don’t put Him back on it.”
My baptist thinking agreed with both of the above arguments. I even disliked nativity scenes with the baby Jesus.
Sometime after I married and had children, my husband, who was raised Roman Catholic, and I found a home in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. My choice of the Lutheran church was actually heavily influenced by my church background with the baptist emphasis on Bible reading and study. In the Lutheran church, I found a historic, cohesive, and no excuse teaching of God’s Word.
Even so, as a baptist taught Christian, I still agreed with the arguments against images and crucifixes. I didn’t even bother to ask about it, since it was obvious to me that I was right and the church was wrong. I felt like I was compromising every time I looked at our church’s big stained glass window. And Lent was worse as that’s when our church’s cross became a crucifix.
Then, one day my youngest son and I were reading about an Italian sculptor named Filippo Brunelleschi and his friend and fellow sculptor, Donatello. One day, stumbling upon a crucifix that Filippo had carved, Donatello stood so transfixed and overcome by the crucifix that he literally dropped his bag of groceries.
I was so intrigued that I searched for a picture of Filippo’s carving and then started thinking that maybe there was something more to this crucifix issue. Just as songs and music can minister to us and enlighten us, could art also teach and minister to us?
First, I had to examine the commandment against graven images. Even though my baptist mindset was very much against pictures of Jesus, as soon as I started reading verses and considering the issues, I recognized some errors in my thinking. There in Exodus in the tabernacle instructions, God gives directions for carving cherubim. Solomon’s temple also contained images of oxen and lions. Clearly, the Jewish people accepted these images, didn’t see the images in conflict with the commandments, and didn’t worship them. And pictures of Jesus? Early Christian artwork contained figures representing Jesus.
Maybe, I thought, the commandment had a deeper meaning. In Acts 17, Paul tells the Athenians that we shouldn’t believe that an image made by man has any power as a god. I get the feeling he’s also saying that, as sensible people, we know better. Isaiah 44 also conveys the silliness of worshiping a man made figure. We know that an idol is just an item made of wood, stone, or even gold, and that man controls it. We’re not stupid. We know that a statue or picture is not a god.
The reality is not that we worship wood and stone. The idolatry that man practices really takes place in the heart, not in images or statues. In our hearts, we worship success, wealth, happiness, status. We look to our jobs or other people to fulfill us, to be our god. That’s really the crux of idolatry - looking to something or someone to provide for us because we don’t believe that God can provide all we need. The commandment really has absolutely nothing to do with pictures of Jesus.
Onto crucifixes...I don’t know when or how it happened, but I no longer look at crucifixes as I once did. The “Don’t keep Jesus on the cross” argument always sounded good to me, but that’s not really why I didn’t like crucifixes. Truth be told, having that little person on a cross sort of creeped me out. It just seemed vulgar and obscene and not from a “look how much He suffered” aspect. I just didn’t like it and didn't want to look at it.
Jesus’ death on the cross is “foolishness” to a sinful world. But, it took God to die on a cross to pay for my sin and the sins of all people. Looking at a crucifix reminds me of that reality, makes me face my sins, reminds me of the severity of my sins. It’s only in knowing my sin and remembering it, dealing with it, that I know the risen Christ. I say to all the arguments against images and against crucifixes, “Don’t argue the legality of it. Think on your sin. Think on the cross. And worship the risen Christ.”
