Cross lights

We just lit up the cross. It’s a string of lights around it. There’s precedence for this: I have a 1992 church directory with a photo of a lit cross on the cover. We might keep them up for just Advent. Then again, it is a nice touch and perhaps worth keeping up all year.

I have mixed feelings on lighting up a cross. On the one hand, we Christians have domesticated crosses. We wear crosses as jewelry and put them on our walls. It’s easy to forget that a cross is a tool of execution. People died on crosses. Imagine if you wore a necklace with a noose, an electric chair, or a vial of potassium chloride. It would be shocking and scandalous.

On the other hand, a cross tells people that we are Christians. At Amazing Grace, I think lighting the cross is a good sign. Our buildings are set back quite a distance from the road, and sometimes it’s hard to tell that we are a church. I’ve heard people think that we are a big house, a school, a convent, or some sort of cult compound. Lighting the cross is one way that we can be clearer about our mission. When somebody sees the cross, then they will know who we are.