AVERSION TO THE CROSS

It's the rare person in this world who hasn't heard of Jesus Christ. Most people have some concept of Christ, even if an inaccurate one. I suppose that, if you asked the average person, even if not a Christian, what they thought of Jesus, most would at least say he's a good guy. Some might even say he was a prophet.  

But unique to Christianity is the concept of Jesus as a suffering Savior who died on a Cross at Calvary for the sin of all mankind.  Very few who call themselves Christian would deny his vicarious atonement. This belief had always been part of Christian teaching. 

I don't recall ever seeing a cross on any LDS Ward house or Stake Center or Temple. I don't recall seeing the cross on necklaces or as part of our awards in classes. It just simply wasn't present. I don't even recall hearing LDS leaders claim that Mormonism is a “sect” of Christianity per se. Oh, they said “we are Christian” but a distinction was always made between the LDS church and all the churches that also claimed to follow Christ. 

It never dawned on me how hypocritical it would have been of our leaders to claim to be part of the body of Christianity, given that the church founder claimed they were all apostate and that this revelation came from none other than Christ, Himself:

“I was answered that I must join none of them [the existing churches], for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that their creeds were an abomination in His sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” [Joseph Smith's First Vision].

Of course we were told that Jesus died on the Cross. But we were also taught that this was not where he atoned for our sins, rather, the atonement for mankind, we were told, took place at Gethsemane:

“Then Jesus left the upstairs room in Jerusalem and with his apostles went to the Garden of Gethsemane. There he suffered terrifically, as Benjamin had predicted, 'even more than man can suffer.'  In fact, we read in Luke: 'And bring in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground (Luke 22:44).' There he shed much of his blood and took upon himself the sins of those who would receive him” [Milton R. Hunter, First Council of the Seventy, Through the Blood of the Lamb, Conference Report, April 1958, pp 78-81].

I believed the leaders when they spoke about such things.  In general there was very little focus on the Cross other than to say that's where Jesus ultimately died. We were not told about how horrendous his death was, either. Which, one could expect. Small children could likely not comprehend such a thing and don't need those gory details rolling in their little heads, either. It simply would have been far too graphic for a child. But to not delve into it for teens and adults seemed rather odd to me.

This wouldn't seem like an aversion to the Cross except that the visual of the Cross was conspicuously missing. It was nowhere to be found on any structure. It was nowhere to be found in the buildings, either. And, back in my time, you were advised against wearing the Cross as jewelry. 

Of course it was mentioned at Easter time, and there were even some pretty sanitized depictions of Jesus on the Cross used during our lessons.  And then, there were the songs.  Strange the way songs affect our understandings of things. Music truly is a teaching tool! And in the LDS church the hymns spoke quite loudly as to doctrine.  Sometimes it was quite subtle. For example, the hymn “Behold the Great Redeemer Die”.  While the first few verses were pretty spot on, the fifth verse, which I didn't pay much attention to, went like this:

“He died, and at the awful sight

The sun in shame withdrew its light!

Earth trembled, and all nature sighed,

Earth trembled, and all nature sighed,

In dread response, 'A God has died!'”

The entire song talked of Jesus' death and the Cross (without ever mentioning the word “cross”) and yet, smuggled in there, was the idea that there were multiple gods, of which Jesus was but one.

There was a hymn that mentioned the death of Christ on the cross. We sang it so often it was imparted to my memory to this very day. In fact, we sang it before taking the sacrament.  “The song was While of these Emblems We Partake” and part of it went like this:

“For us the blood of Christ was shed;

For us on Calvary's cross he bled,

And thus dispelled the awful gloom

That else were his creation's doom”.

The lyric writer for the song, John Nicholson, probably was a little confused. Born in 1839, he converted to Mormonism in 1861 at the age of twenty-two. So perhaps he brought some of the stuff about the Cross and how Jesus shed his blood for mankind in that location, and not Gethsemane, along with him. Nobody seemed to mind, though.

These were things I just didn't think about. But why should I have? We were told the atonement for man was at Gethsemane and that was that.  Later on, in my teen years, I would hear alternative voices expressing the view that Jesus took on the sin of man, not at Gethsemane, rather, on the Cross itself. This experience first happened to me in high school. 

Phil was one of those annoying Christians.  This was back in the early seventies when the cults were thriving and Christian churches were on high alert for the oddball groups that collected lost teens.  The “Jesus People” were also thriving and considered part of the “new wave” of Christianity.

Lumped in with the “cults” was Mormonism.  Most of us LDS kids, I believe, were completely unaware that we were considered part of a cult group. I surely didn't! Not until Phil came along. Of course, I found it easy to write him or any of his buddies off, seeing that they were so strange.

Of Lebanese extraction, Phil's family had left Lebanon for America shortly after he was born but they still lived as Lebanese people. Which meant Phil was the only boy in high school sporting a beard and smelling like Cumin. But he was friendly enough and most people liked him, that is, until he started talking about Jesus.

Like other members of the school Bible Club, Phil carried his Bible around on meeting days. But he went a little further. He carried it every other day as well. The black leather binding was nearly worn out and pages were slipping from the binding. But that didn't stop Phil from pulling out his Bible whenever the opportunity to use it presented itself.

So many of the ardent believers back then, particularly the younger ones, were keenly into cult studies. They had good reason to be, especially in D.C., which back then had as many nuts and mental cases as any place else in the U.S., and that's without counting Congress! 

For example, Scientology had taken off and was on the rise in D.C.  There was a raid on them in 1971 which resulted in some very negative exposure as well, but this was not uncommon with these groups. And then there was the Alamo Foundation and the Children of God groups. But these groups were mainly out west. 

More present in D. C. were the followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi  and the Hare Krishna. Both groups were known to present themselves at airports, bus stations and train stations, as well as college campuses. The Krishna's were the main offenders though. Usually bugging people in airports by selling flowers “for a donation.”  Eventually they were banned from entering.

When Phil found out that I was LDS, I suddenly became his “pet”. Though I didn't know why right away.  It all started quite innocently. We were in homeroom when the announcement came on the intercom that the Bible Club would be having its first annual mixer and that, if you wanted to attend, all you needed to do was contact a member.  At the time I was already attending LDS Seminary in the early morning before school. So I didn't really see a need to join the Bible Club.

When Kathy asked me if I would like to go I explained that I was already attending seminary. Apparently neither one of us knew that LDS Seminary wasn't like Christian seminary. “You should definitely come, then!” She said all perky. “Since you're attending seminary you could probably give us all some insights!”

Poor Kathy thought I was a devoted Bible student. Little did she know that we were studying the Book of Mormon!  I was also under the misconception that everyone who knew me also knew that I was a Mormon. It's not like I wore a matching Angel Moroni earrings and necklace set but I sincerely thought people knew!

When we walked into the classroom that afternoon I was impressed by the friendliness. But then, high school mixers tended to be that way.  We took our seats in a preset circle of chairs while the club President opened with prayer. The prayer seemed quite odd to me, to be honest. 

To begin with, the prayer was extremely informal.  There was no addressing the Heavenly Father. Instead,  they skipped Him and went straight to the second in charge, Jesus.  The others didn't sit quietly, either. Some said a simple “yes Lord” while others said a more animated “amen,” right in the middle of the prayer! Shouldn't that have been at the end?  My mind filed this under the irreverent folder.

After the prayer and being told to help ourselves to the cookies, we were told there was going to be a short devotion. This is when I noticed that everyone else was wearing a Cross except me. Phil's was so large you couldn't help but see it. But most were small ones, worn around the neck or on the wrist. 

“But first, let's share a little about ourselves and where we are in our faith walk,” the teacher advisor said. It was an interesting mix of traditional Christian groups. Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and Episcopalian. And then it was my turn.

“I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”, I said.  This was followed by a deafening silence from those around me. Then came the comment I truly did not expect: “It's nice to have a Mormon in our midst,” said the teacher advisor. I hadn't said Mormon. How did he know? I wasn't hiding it of course, but we had been told to use the full name of the Church whenever possible. I had no idea that others outside the LDS church knew the term Mormon applied to us LDS folk.

I sat there as the devotion began. It was on the Cross of Christ. Specifically the purpose of the Cross and why Jesus had to die on it. To be honest, everything that was said pretty much went by in a blur.  For me, it was like these people were speaking in a foreign language. They used terms I had used, but they seemed to have a completely different meaning.  Among those terms was the term “atonement”.

They kept talking about “the blood” and about sacrifice being needed. To be honest it all sounded pretty grisly and sounded more like they were relating a morbid human sacrifice as opposed to Jesus willingly giving Himself for sin.  This was especially so when it came to the discussion about the Cross.

“Now wait a second,” I interrupted. This was too important to let go by. “It was in Gethsemane where Jesus shed great drops of blood. Not on the Cross! Gethsemane is where he bled for mankind!”

Phil had a totally dopey look on his face as the others corrected me.  I never felt so out of place in my life! It was like I was the last bone in the desert and the vultures were circling! Eventually I got up, excused myself, and determined never to return to Bible Club again.

But that didn't stop Phil. No, I was his mission in life. I remember one specific occasion when Phil decided to just confront the vampire in me or something. I was leaving choir and he caught me in the hall.

“You see this?” He held up his humongous wooden Cross. “We wear this because it symbolizes that Jesus loved us so much that He shed his blood for us on it!”

I stood there with this cross inches from my face, feeling very intimidated to be honest. I began to walk away in the opposite direction, hoping Phil would simply leave me alone.  But I didn't go very far before I spun around and yelled at Phil:

“I suppose if Jesus had shed his blood when someone shot him, you'd wear the gun around your neck!”

This wasn't something I pulled out of my hat, rather, it was based on something I had heard not too long before this encounter. Usually it came from LDS Missionaries telling stories about their door knocking exploits.  In Mormon doctrine, unlike Christian teaching, the Cross has no positive connotation:

“We may be definitely sure that if our Lord had been killed with a dagger or a sword, it would be very strange indeed if religious people of this day would have graced such a weapon by wearing it and adorning it because it was by such a means that our Lord was put to death” [Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, vol. 4, 1963].

I look back on those statements now, realizing that they come from an ignorance of how beautiful the Cross of Christ is and how Christians actually view it.

Back then I wouldn't have known such things.  Oh, I saw the Cross on the steeples of  a variety of denominations. I saw people wear it. And I saw one in the front of the sanctuary when I went to a friend's church as a child.  I also saw the Cross- well actually the Crucifix- when I snuck into St. Annes Catholic Church one day just to see what it was like inside.

On those occasions I still believed that the rest of the religions were just apostate sects of the true Christianity. I also thought that they were worshiping the Cross. After all, the Catholics bowed in front of it. Protestants too, sometimes. I also thought it odd that the Catholics used a crucifix and Protestants did not. Yet another evidence that the Mormon church was the one true church: all the other churches disagreed about the Cross.

I never realized that the Crucifix was a memorial to the suffering Messiah and that the empty Cross was a memorial to the risen Savior. Today's Mormon leadership has, by in large, toned down the anti-Cross rhetoric when explaining why LDS structures do not sport the Cross. As Gordon Hinckley said:

“I do not wish to give offense to any  of my Christian colleagues who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the altars of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is a symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the Living Christ” (Ensign, April 2005, The Symbol of our Faith).

Hinckley's rationale is flawed when he says that the Cross is a symbol of Christs' death alone and then to say they worship a “living Christ”.  If Jesus had not died on the Cross, there wouldn't be a “living Lord” in the sense of a resurrected Savior, which the Mormon church clearly teaches.  Think about what it was that Jesus used to identify himself as being resurrected in the first place: 

“When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'  And when he had said this, he showed them both his hands and his side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord” (John 20: 19-24).

Showing them his hands and side was showing them evidence that He was the one who was killed on the Cross. Obviously Jesus wasn't squeamish about what happened on the Cross. And it happened to Him!

Down through the ages, Christians have died for their faith, which included believing in the death of Christ on the Cross. When it comes to attacks on the fundamental faith of Christianity, it isn't the Virgin conception that is most attacked. Nor is it the general ministry of Christ. The target for almost every attack is Christs' death on the Cross and its redemptive action.  To dismiss it's memory through symbolism as something contrary to the remembrance of a living Savior simply eliminates the link between His sacrifice and His resurrection.

Another problem with the idea that to have a Cross in your church is like honoring the gun that killed a loved one is that this rationale flies in the face of what Christ, Himself, had to say about His own death:

“No man taketh [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again.  This commandment I have recieved of my Father” (John 10:18).

Jesus could have gotten down off that Cross at any time. He chose not to. This was not a murder, as Muslims often argue when trying to diminish the death of Christ on the Cross.  No, it was a willful sacrifice. 

On September 11, 2001, firefighters ran into the World Trade Towers when others were running out. They self-sacrificed their lives. Standing on Ground Zero is a memorial to those brave men who went in, when others went out. Nobody worships the memorial there. But they go there to remember. And so it is, but on a much more important scale, with Crosses on and in Churches. Its a symbol to remind us of Christ's willful sacrifice, not a murder. And the empty Cross, present in all Churches, reminds us that Jesus didn't stay dead. He arose!

It may be of interest to know that the aversion to the Cross that I experienced as a Mormon child wasn't present in the earliest days of the Mormon church. In 1916, to commemorate the sacrifices of early Mormon Pioneers, Bishop Charles Nibley proposed the erection of a large cross.  A BYU paper on Ensign Peak related the story:

“In 1916, the public debated a plan to place a cross at the summit of Ensign Peak. Surprisingly enough, it was Charles W. Nibley, Presiding Bishop of the Church, who suggested placing a large concrete cross on the peak.  Bishop Nibley announced that the Church would provide the leadership and funding for the project, which was designed to achieve two objectives. The first was to provide a visible reminder to the city below of the sacrifices made by the pionees of 1847.  Secondly, a visible cross would stand as a symbol to visitors who were not members of the Church that Mormons were indeed a Christian people. Many groups in the community objected to the plan, including members of the Church and various other religious organizations. This growing opposition within the community and the Church prompted Bishop Nibley to abandon the plan” (Ensign Peak: A Historical Review, Dennis A. Wright and Rebekah E. Westrup. BYU Religious Education Studies).

But though some today are quick to point out that the early Mormons, some of them, did wear the Cross, it is important to note that Mormonism began with converts from the established Christian sects wherein the wearing of a Cross (not the Crucifix) was commonplace.

President David O. McKay crystalized the LDS concept involved in the wearing of the Cross. In responding to a letter about whether or not young LDS girls should purchase a cross that was being sold in a store in Salt Lake City, Utah, McKay responded that such was a “..purely Catholic” thing and that “...Latter-day Saint girls should not purchase nor wear them...” (Deseret News, September 10, 2009, “Sunstone speaker attempts to explain LDS 'aversion' to the Cross”).

In over thirty years of being Mormon, I never saw anyone wear a Cross who was LDS. Strangely enough, we had songs in our hymn books that used the Cross as their theme and seemed more in line with the traditional Christian view than with LDS doctrine on the topic of the Cross:

“Upon the cross of Calvary

They crucufied our Lord

And sealed with the blood of sacrifice

That sanctified his word.”

[Upon the Cross of Calvary]

“Help us, O God, to undestand

Our Savior's love for us.

He paid the price for all our sins

And died upon the cross.”

[Help Us, O God, to Understand]

“Let me not forget, O, Savior

Thou didst bleed and die for me

When thy heart was still and broken

on the Cross at Calvary.”

[In Humility Our Savior]

The first time I ever heard “the preaching of the Cross” was in a small country church. The Pastor, not a man prone to dramatics, was to the point of tears as he described in detail the events leading up to the Cross, culminating in a detailed account of the crucifixion itself. All of this was peppered with medical information about what the physical body went through along the way.  From His arrest to the ultimate crucifxion itself, the Pastor detailed what this did to the man, Jesus.

I sat there mesmerized. I had never heard the crucifixion of Jesus portrayed this way. It was always a kind of sanitized presentation.  When he came towards the close of the sermon he asked the congregation: “is it any wonder that Jesus agonized over His mission while in Gethsemane? Wouldn't we have been in agony over the situation to come as well?”  

The Pastor went on: “Jesus was, after all, fully God and yet, he was also fully man. He had human fears and feelings and had no doubt felt physical pain on a lesser scale. He knew hunger. He knew emotional grief.”

Contrary to what Bruce McConkie had to say in 1985, Gethsemane had nothing to do with bringing for the “immortality and eternal life” of all humanity. It had nothing to do with freeing all mankind from “death” and “hell”.  Nor could Gethsemane have possibly been where Christs' “..suffering satisfied the demands of justice, ransomed the penitent souls from the pains and penalties of sin, and made mercy available to those who believe in his holy name” (Bruce R. McConkie, “the Purifying Power of Gethsemane” April 1985).

No, that kind of demand for justice was laid down in the Garden, when Adam and Eve, who sinned in rebellion, attempted to cover their sinful actions with their own design. But a Holy God could not and would not accept their human attempt to cover sin. Instead, God fashioned skins for Adam and Eve to wear as a covering. This was the first instance of blood shed to cover sin.

Sometimes, when discussing this with LDS Missionaries, the point to a particular passage in Luke:

“And  [Jesus] was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, saying, 'Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.' And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22: 41-44).

There has always been some discussion as to what the droplets of blood in Gethsemane were all about. What was going on here?  Luke, who recorded this event, was also a physician as well as the only one who was not an Apostle (albeit, he was a disciple).  He was also the only Gospel writer noting the droplets falling from Christ. 

This is significant. Had the event in Gethsemane been a redemptive event, the other Gospel writers would have mentioned it. And yet, they did not.  And yet, for some reason, Luke finds this event particularly significant.  His physicians' interet could e the reason. Medical resources today call the condition of Christ in Gethsemane by the name Hematridrosis.

According to a study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, 

“Acute fear and intense mental contemplation were found to be the most frequent causes” of Hematridrosis [Holoubek and Holoubek, Lousiana State University of Medicine, Shreveport.]

It needs to be remembered as well that this event took place before Christ was arrested.  If the redemptive work was done at Gethsemane, then there was truly no reason for Christ to continue in His mission and endure all of the humiliation and pain.

In The Promised Messiah, Bruce McConkie stated:

“Forgiveness is available because Christ the Lord sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane as he bore the incalculale weight of the sins of all who ever had or ever would repent...In the garden called Gethsemane, outside Jerusalem's walls, in agony beyond compare, he took upon him the sins of all men on condition of repentance”.

I would think the agony of the Cross would trump the agony in Gethsemane ten times over because it was more than emotional agony, it was also physical as well as spiritual because, as Jesus ultimatetly took on the sin of all mankind, for a split second, the Father turned His Holy face away from His only Son, the physical Jesus:

“And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15: 34).

Jesus, the man who knew no sin, was God in human flesh. Yet, as he died and all the sin of the world was placed on him and he became the final sacrifice for sin, Jesus was banished from the presense of God. This is because sin cannot exist in God's presence. So the cry of Jesus tells us the profound truth, and that is, that Jesus endured the separation from God that is deserved by all. He felt it for us on the Cross.

I never totally understood the sacrifice of love that was portrayed at the Cross until after I came to an understanding that the death, while horrific, was necessary. And that it was a willing death. The aversion to the Cross I knew growing up Mormon was a manufactured theology designed to keep people like me from turing to the Cross as a symbol of Christs' full sacrifice for me, not just mankind in general, but me, personally.

And because of that loving sacrifice I can now walk boldy to the throne of Christ without fear of being turned away for any reason:

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8: 38, 39).