No Cross, No Christianity

An excerpt from Classic Christianity, author - Thomas C. Oden

To preach is to announce the cross.  

To worship is to come to the cross.  

To believe is to trust in the One crucified. 

It is impossible to imagine Christianity without a cross.  Christian worship is spatially ordered around it.  The history of Western art and architecture holds the cross before us constantly.  In death the graves of Christians are marked by a cross.

A flood of impression and images collide and meld in the portrayal of the rugged power meaning of the cross.  In a burst of ecstasy, many of these are amassed in a single passage by John of Damascus.  In Jesus death,

Death has been brought low, the sin of our first parent destroyed, hell plundered, resurrection bestowed, the power given us to scorn the things of this world, and even death itself, the road back to the former blessedness made smooth, the gates of paradise opened, our nature seated at the right hand of God, and we made children and heirs of God.  By the cross all things have been set aright...It is a raising up for those who lie fallen, a support for the wandering, perfecting of the advanced, salvation for soul and body, an averter of all evils, a cause of all good things a destruction of sin, a plant of resurrection, and a tree of eternal life (John of Damascus, OF4.11).

(pages 402)