God’s Big Idea:love God . . . love others.

God’s love for us.How do we know God loves us?The cross.

And one of the most effective ways we can communicate God’s love for us is to keep the cross before the world.

THE OLD GREENWICH CROSS

In Old Greenwich, Connecticut, stands a church with a cross in it.Unlike most churches, whose crosses adorn the front wall behind the preacher, this one is bolted down into the concrete floor in front of the platform, not more than three feet from where the preacher stands.

Its positioning defines reason and art and convention.No architect in his right mind would have designed such a placement.It is an obstruction.The preacher’s words have to pass through it; the congregation’s eyes always have it somewhere in view, so that even when they look away, it is still there, impressed on the back wall of the retina.

It is a sturdy wooden cross, ten feet tall.The crossbar is set high on the vertical beam, so high that it seems out of proportion compared to other more proportionate crosses that decorate other more proportionate churches.

Nothing about this cross is pretty.It is made of raw, untreated wood, and when you see it up close, you think of splinters, of something hard . . . immovable.It is set deep in the concrete floor as well as bolted to it, so that a blow makes it vibrate rapidly. Strike it hard enough, and it will answer back in a low tone.I’ve heard that it can be removed, but not without great difficulty, because of its size and weight.

It would be almost impossible to forget this cross, when I was standing and talking with someone or walking anywhere near the front of the church.I had a tendency to shy away from it—to lean unconsciously, to make sure I always knew where it was or, more accurately, where I was in relation to it.

The minute I walked into the church in Old Greenwich and encountered this startling placement of the cross, I felt as if I had discovered something truly significant. For just as the cross has been placed squarely in the center of this church, so it has always stood in the center of history and in the center of any life that has truly embraced it.And just as the placement of this cross seems uncomfortable, so it is. . .and so it should be.There is nothing comfortable about the cross.The church in America has become increasingly accustomed to Christianity without a cross—or, at best, with one hanging harmlessly in the background.

The Old Greenwich cross seems more like what crosses should be if we are, in fact, going to have any of them around as reminders. It is rugged, sturdy, bare, and in the way.

The Old Greenwich cross has to be reckoned with.It is in the middle of everything—weddings, funerals, concerts, baptisms, dedications, prayer meetings, Sunday morning services.Where do you put the casket?Are the bride and groom going to stand on either side of it?What if the bride’s dress gets caught on a splinter?Where do you put the horn section?Where do you stand?Every event that takes place in this church has to accommodate this cross in some way.It cannot be moved easily like the pulpit or the platform chairs or the Communion table or the planters of ivy that line the platform’s edge.It’s almost as if the church was built around the cross—as if it were the first thing down before the walls went up and the roof went on.

Something tells me it was.

On A Hill Too Far Away.John Fischer.Bethany House. p.15.16, 25.