Christ's cross

I still remember the first time I noticed an elementary school classmate wearing a crucifix. I was raised Southern Baptist, so I'd never seen a cross with the Jesus still on it.\nWhen I asked my Sunday school teacher why our crosses were so plain, she explained that it was ridiculous to parade around images of a naked, suffering, lonely Christ. The important thing to remember was that he arose, after all.\nThe older I get, the more I'm convinced she was absolutely wrong.\nThe message of Christianity is one of triumph that only comes through selflessness and sacrifice. The glory of Easter Sunday is meaningless when it's divorced from the pain of Good Friday.\nThroughout the Gospels, we read about Jesus serving others. He fed the multitudes, gave sight to the blind, healed the sick and raised the dead. He spent his time with the down-and-outers the rest of society had forgotten. He even washed his disciples' feet as a sign of humility.\nIn simplest terms, Christ's message was, "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me."\nPoliticians and preachers on the Religious Right would do well to remember what Christ did not say. He didn't say to persecute homosexuals so they never receive their full civil rights and can never marry. He didn't say to make sure illegal immigrants could never enjoy the blessings of liberty and prosperity. He didn't say to replace hard science with mythology. He didn't say our children should pray to him ostentatiously at school, that birth control was evil or that every nation's creed should contain a clause paying homage to his father.\nHe said, "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me."\nProsperity preachers have also got it wrong. They assure us that God wants us to thrive financially, that if we pray seeking success, God will be more than happy to oblige us. But when a rich young man asked Jesus how to have eternal life, Jesus answered, "Sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor, and take up your cross and follow me."\nIt is tragic that so much of modern American Christianity has been hijacked by meddling moralizers and greedy charlatans. The moralizers are preoccupied with policing everyone's thoughts and actions, and the charlatans are busy peddling their glittering gospel of health and wealth.\nBut the message of Easter isn't a club to wield or a cash cow to milk. It's a cross to bear. It's serving God every day by denying ourselves and serving other people. It's honoring a naked, lonely, suffering Christ by meeting the needs of the naked, lonely, suffering people all around us.\nMy Sunday school teacher and those like her embrace the Christless cross, the bombastic and brazen emblem of power and might. "After all, Christ is risen," they say.\nBut I like him there on the cross. And when I see his twisted, bleeding body, I'm reminded that before he rose, in selfless service to others, he died.