ASK A CATHOLIC: Why Crucifixes, Not Crosses?

Why do Catholics have crucifixes in the church and not crosses?  Don't they believe that Jesus has risen?  Why keep Him on the cross?  First of all you would want to check out 1 Corinthians 1:23.  St. Paul says "...But we preach Christ crucified..."  Why does Paul preach Christ crucified?  Doesn't he know that He has risen?

Of course he does!  But he also knows that it is through the crucified Christ that the bonds of sin and death are broken.  As he says in verse 24: Christ crucified is the "power of God."  1 Corinthians 2:2 "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Doesn't he know that Jesus is risen?  Again, of course he did!

Paul preaches Christ crucified because an empty cross has no power.  The cross that bears the beaten, battered, and bloodied body of Christ, however, that cross is the "power of God."  This is why "we keep Jesus Christ on the cross" because we, too, preach Christ crucified and we too recognize the symbol of crucifix as God's power.

The crucifix not only reminds us of God's power, but also His love for us - giving His only begotten son up in suffering and death (St. John 3:16).  Also, in this life we do not share so much in the glory of the Resurrection, as we do in the suffering of Jesus on the cross: after all, we must take up our crosses daily if we are to follow Jesus (St. Luke 9:23).  And we must die with Christ if we are to live with Him (Romans 6:8).  Where did Jesus die?  On the cross.  The crucifix serves to remind us of these things.

One other passage to keep in mind is Galatians 3:1.  "O foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?"  Did you catch that?  Jesus was portrayed, before their "eyes", as being crucified.  Sounds kind of like they may have been looking at a crucifix, doesn't it?

Jesus, The Living Water

St. John 4: 1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, "Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John" 2 --although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized-- 3 he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."


As I had researched that passage, I read a commentary on how that wasn't literally true.  In fact, most people in Jesus' time traveled from Judea to Galilee through the Jordan Rift Valley in order to avoid passing through Samaria.  They believed Samaritan people were ritually unclean and that contact with them would render a Jewish person unclean too.  So Jews went out of their way.  The phrase 'He had to pass' was probably a traditional way of saying the events that transpired were no accident but happened as part of God's will.


Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)


Okay, I thought this was interesting.  When Jesus asked the Samaritan woman for a drink, he violated a number of ancient customs.  First, the fact Jesus even started a conversation with a Samaritan demonstrated a rejection of Jewish mores of that time.  Second, that Jesus would talk with that woman as an equal went against a culture of male superiority.  Restrictions against speaking with women were so strict that a rabbi (or teacher, such as Jesus) wasn't even allowed to speak with his own wife, daughter, or sister in public.  And third, Jesus started a conversation with a woman he knew to have a bad moral reputation was even more shocking and significant.


What this passage said to me, is how one was or is beyond the love of Jesus, regardless of their tribe or race, gender, or sexuality.  In verse 18, Jesus reveals to the woman his supernatural knowledge that 'you have five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband.'  Clearly, this woman's love life wasn't 'one man, one woman, till death do us part.'  Jesus knew this, yet he reached out to her. He didn't try to change her.  He didn't judge her.  He didn't condemn her.  Nor did he get in a scriptural debate.  Instead, he asked her to share a cup of water with him.


It is time for the Church to stop judging and condemning and changing people.  The Church's job is to love one another as ourselves (St. Mark 12:31).  Jesus knew the "wrongdoings" of the Samaritan woman.  Yet, he asked her to share a cup of water with him.  And he reached out to her.  It is time for us to do the same.  To do the same, is to follow Christ... Christ Jesus, the living water.