Cross of Christ

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14).

The history of the human race begins and ends with the cross. That was the moment wherein the two polar opposites of life and death in the human mind were merged.

The vertical cross-beam (Patibulum in Latin) is the earth and all its desires. Jesus was forced to carry that wooden cross-beam on His shoulders on His way to Golgotha. He had carried the entire weight of the world on His back.

The upright stake, already in place, is our upward ascent to heaven - it is rooted in the ground and it extends skyward. Jesus was the one that had conjoined the vertical beam with the horizontal stake - the merging of the two distinct realms - the heavenly and the earthly.

The blood and water that had gushed out is our very life, issuing from our experiences as Christians. Jesus's cry of dereliction ("Eloi Eloi, Lama Sabachthani" Matthew 27:46) signifies the human condition of alienation and abandonment. And His cry of death is our cries of being born into this new world - our birth and our beginning.

His death is our life and His resurrection is our transcendence of our life in this world to the life of infinity. This is all we need to know about our salvation.

"For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1st Corinthians 2:2)