Gary Neal Hansen

Theology. It's good for you.

  • About
    • Speaking
    • Contact
    • Home
  • Books
    • Love Your Bible
    • Christmas Play
    • Kneeling with Giants
    • Review Crew
  • Library
    • Join
    • Login
  • Blog
  • Lenten Prayer Class log in
    • Lenten Prayer Class Info
    • Class Info: Your First Sermon
      • Your 1st Sermon — Course Login
    • Advent Lectio Divina Class Info!
      • Lectio Divina Class Log In
    • “Pray Like a Reformer” Class Info
      • Pray Like a Reformer Login
  • Christmas Play
  • Love Your Bible
  • Kneeling with Giants

The Cross of Christ — Protestant and Orthodox

September 14, 2016 by Gary Neal Hansen 4 Comments

Elevation of the Life-Giving Cross of Christ
Crucifixion, Russian – Walters art gallery

Protestantism is all about the Cross.

In my Protestant world, everyone seems to focus on the Cross all the time.

It is all about the Cross, especially in the Evangelical segments.

After all, the Cross of Christ is arguably the crucial event in the history of salvation. (There are other events that could also make a case, of course.)

So we feel good biblical support for bringing every sermon, and a whole lot of our hymns and praise songs, back to the cross. We hear Paul say he aimed to preach nothing but Christ and him crucified, and that clenches the deal.

So year after year at seminary convocations and commencements, we sing “Lift High the Cross.”

And at commitment services, as people fain would take their stand, we sing “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.”

We can be a bit myopic on this: My wife visited Oxford over Easter one year and relished the chance to visit both Anglican High Church (Anglo-Catholic) and Anglican Low Church (Evangelical) services. Neither church, she found, preached about the resurrection. They preached about (you guessed it) the Cross.

As she likes to joke, for Protestants Good Friday is “The Cross — Sad” and Easter tends to be “The Cross — Happy.”

Friends, on Easter Sunday the cross is two days into the past. The big deal of Easter is that Jesus is actually ALIVE. And that is something we Protestants have a hard time explaining.

Orthodoxy is all about the Cross too.

In Orthodoxy there is no shortage of talk about the cross either.

The Cross is there in every service too, in icons and in hymns and in readings.

  • You see Jesus on the Cross in icons, his body bent with pain of death but still clearly the Lord of Life.
  • You hear the Cross mentioned in hymns and texts and prayers.
  • And the Cross takes its prominent place in Holy Week where participants hear and see the biblical drama unfold.
  • Plus the Cross gets its own special feast day.

Whether in regular week by week worship, or on a major feast, how different the emphasis is between the two traditions.

The difference is both in content and in tone.

The Daily Difference.

In the day to day mentions of the Cross there is a key, if subtle, distinction of between Protestant and Orthodox.

For the Protestant, the typical reference is

Christ died for you on the Cross.

The emphasis is on substitution.

We have absorbed, in the West, the drama of the divine courtroom:

  • We are guilty.
  • A just God says somebody must pay the price.
  • The Father sends his Son to be our substitute, an innocent human being suffering instead of us guilty ones.

This, in recent decades, has prompted some theologians and commentators to suggest our view of salvation smacks of divine child abuse. How could God do such a thing?

For the Orthodox the typical reference is instead

Christ who willingly chose the Cross

or something to that effect. The emphasis is on Christ’s generous self-giving, his freely chosen sacrifice. The idea of the Father imposing it on the Son doesn’t enter the picture.

(By the way, I didn’t believe this when I found the observation  in a book by Frederica Mathews-Green, but after a lot more exposure to the prayers and hymnody of Orthodoxy, I’m convinced.)

The Feast Day Difference.

But there is also an extra day each year to celebrate the Cross. Today, August 14, happens to be that day.

This morning I attended Orthos (or Matins or Morning Prayer) and Divine Liturgy at an Antiochian Orthodox Church to check it out.

The liturgies of the feast of “The Elevation of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross” give a more thorough exposition of the theme. In the process other kinds of differences emerges.

  • Protestant theology tends toward argument and explanation.
  • Orthodox theology often tends toward poetry and making meaningful connections.

Both traditions are richly biblical. They just approach the Bible very differently.

The Protestant wants to articulate the human stance before God’s justice, and explain how Jesus solves our problem, using the Gospel narratives of the Cross and Paul’s expositions of the point.

The Orthodox also know from Paul and the Gospels how important the Cross is. But they look to the poetry and images of the whole Bible to fill our hearts and minds with an understanding of salvation.

They look for echoes of salvation through the Cross all the way back through the Old Testament.

  • As the first Adam fell into sin and death through a tree, so Jesus, the New Adam defeats death itself and solves the problem of sin through a tree.
  • Moses, at the first big act of the salvation drama, struck the Red Sea with his staff to part it for the Israelites to pass through. Then Moses turned his staff perpendicular and struck it again so the waters drowned their enemies — Moses made a cross to save Israel.

They find other Cross images. They play with the stories. They use their poetic imagination, and the intertextual connections throughout the Bible, to build up a rich web of meaning.

The meaning is that the Cross brings salvation. And the Cross has always brought salvation. And this has always pointed to Jesus.

The Elevation of the Life-Giving Cross of Christ

So why August 14? That’s another story:

That was the day Emperor Constantine’s mom, St. Helena, found the True Cross. It had lain buried under a pagan temple.

Actually she found three crosses, so she had to do an experiment: Which one belonged to Jesus, and which ones were those of the thieves.

Solution: Only one of them was able to raise a dead man.

Convinced?

There is poetry and storytelling, literary and artistic meaning, unutterable beauty and a rich source of life in all of this.

If you are looking for an argument to convince your rationalistic mind you probably won’t fine one.

But you might find yourself drawn by something else…

————

This post contains an affiliate link.

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: Church Year, Theology Tagged With: Cross of Christ, Elevation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross, Orthodoxy, Protestantism

Hungry for a better way to go deeper with God?

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my weekly(ish) newsletter -- I'll send you links to every new article, as well as updates on new projects. Just click the orange button.

Subscribe!
As a thank you, I'll send you the ebook version of my book Love Your Bible: Finding Your Way to the Presence of God with a 12th Century Monk. It's a modern introduction to an ancient, prayerful, Christian approach to Scripture.

Comments

  1. Susanna Cantu Gregory says

    September 15, 2016 at 9:43 AM

    Now be honest, Gary. Did you pick this topic on this day on purpose? (Roman Catholic Feast of the Exultation of the Cross)

    I’m fascinated by the dynamic, in U.S. Christian practice, of Protestants and Catholics accusing each other of paying too much attention to the cross. Who has the bloody crucifix? Who has children act out the passion? Who ardently sings about the cross?

    In Mexican American and Italian American Catholic devotional practices, this seam between emphasizing cross and resurrection isn’t so precise. They’re all wrapped together and expressed alongside particular communities’ suffering and hope.

    Reply
    • Gary Neal Hansen says

      September 15, 2016 at 9:57 AM

      Hi Susanna!

      Absolutely on purpose– but for the Orthodox feast on the 14th, not the parallel Catholic feast. I enjoyed the way the hymnody explores aspects of the Cross that Protestants often miss. And I was happy to bypass the polemical issues that often occupy Protestant/Catholic comparisons.

      Hope you all are well! Miss you…

      Reply
  2. Leann Luchinger says

    September 16, 2016 at 1:32 PM

    Gary,
    Your wife is so insightful… “As she likes to joke, for Protestants Good Friday is “The Cross — Sad” and Easter tends to be “The Cross — Happy.”” I guess this is why (I think for most Protestant Churches) we prefer to display the cross rather than the crucifix.

    You bring out a very good point – it is a both/and scenario. Yes, there is a courtroom scene, and we are guilty. Yes, Christ willingly accepted this mission.

    Reply
    • Gary Neal Hansen says

      September 16, 2016 at 2:02 PM

      Thanks Leann!

      Yes, she is insightful — on this and many things.

      Funny thing about crosses vs crucifixes: in conversations among Protestants I’ve always heard people say the cross should be empty because Christ rose from the dead. I don’t think that is really the origin of the Protestant practice though. Reformed polemics against idolatry are at the root of the empty cross for a wide swath of Protestants.

      Luther in particular had a rich and insightful approach to the cross, as I’m sure you know!

      I hope you are well. Is Heather on a World Tour or something? Are you with her?

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Theology. It’s good for you.

I'm a Church historian by trade. My writing, speaking, and teaching explores the Christian past to equip today's disciples. Join me here for regular posts on the best of theology, spirituality, community, and ministry. read more…

Recent Posts

  • A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 21:23-32
  • A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16
  • A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 18:15-20
  • A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 — Wheat and Weeds
  • A Children’s Sermon on John 14:15-25

Search the site

Need a new and manageable way to dig into Scripture?

Find out how it can be a joy again--or maybe for the first time. Love Your Bible: Finding Your Way to the Presence of God with a 12th Century Monk is a modern introduction to an ancient, prayerful, Christian practice called lectio divina. Click the button to subscribe to my weekly(ish) newsletter with all my new articles and announcements. As my way of thanking you, I'll send you the ebook version for free.

Get my book!

Archives

Let’s connect on social media…

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Search the site

  • Community for Mission
  • Letters to a Young Pastor
  • Christianity as a Second Language
  • Role Models for Discipleship

© 2023 garynealhansen.com · Rainmaker Platform