We are going to enter into the Passion week starting with the ‘Passion Sunday’. This is the time when we particularly focus our attention on the passion, suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘The cross of our Lord’ or ‘Christ on the cross’ is going to be the centre of our attention. This is the time when we take time to reflect what this ‘cross of Christ’ or’ Christ on the cross’ means for us.
Friends, cross means different things to different people. For some it a fashion. I saw people wearing cross even as an ear-ring because it is a fashion. Nothing more than that. The person who hung on it does not matter. For some, it is an identity; that I belong to a certain group. And for some it is something else.
I remember a funny story I heard a long back. It’s about a man who was fed up of his life and the problems of life. He climbed a tall tree to jump from there and commit suicide. His wife came with the two little children and started pleading with him to come down, for she and her children will be left without any support. He was not moved. His relatives and friends tried to persuade him to come down with no avail. Even the village-elders could not do anything to bring him down the tree. Then they decided to call their Parish priest to give final blessings before he dies. Priest came and said a small prayer extending his hands and blessed him making a sign of the cross on him. You know how the catholic priests bless people. They make a vertical line followed by a horizontal line to symbolize a cross. As soon as the priest blessed him, the man climbed down the tree immediately and went with his wife without saying a word. All were surprised and happy. After a week, his wife asked him why he hurried down immediately when the priest blessed him with the sign of the cross. He said “ you know what the priest said ‘Come down form the tree (sign of vertical line) or I’ll cut the tree down(sign of horizontal line). He seems to be a man who will do it so I came down.” Friends, it’s a joke to say what cross meant for him or for some.
As I told you, cross means many things for many. So also ‘Christ on the cross’ means different things to different men. Speaking of this, St. Paul says to Corinthians, 1 Cor. 1/23-24 : “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who believe, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
What he says is this: For some Christ is the cross is a stumbling block. So they try to do away with Him. Hence they crucified him. They make every effort to do away with Him, because He is a stumbling block. If He is there, they cannot have their own way. It is these people who call those men who teach goodness and morality as ‘stupid’. (I am not just hinting at Richard Dawkins. There are many like him) Truth and morality is a stumbling block to them. They go an extra mile to ridicule them and do away with them. Because they cannot live like their ancestors(monkeys) from whom they believe they descended. Is it not true that many today are trying to do away with God and religion. (M******* does not need a god.)
And for some he is a folly. The thought of God and supernatural realities is an absurdity. They say it is a n opium of the oppressed and depressed. It is neurotic’s drug. How can a man who died two thousand years ago save someone who is dying now. It is mathematical impossibility and scientific absurdity. But they do not know that life is not all about mathematics and science. Life is not as simple as ‘2+2=4 formula.’
As Paul says, for those who believe it is the power and wisdom of God. History proves that through the ages Christianity has achieved what no other religion or organization has achieved. It has endured or survived more persecutions than any other religion or institution has survived. It went through so many dark days than any other religion and survived, just because it is the power and wisdom of God that was leading it. (If you say something what was the light and guide of man as an absurdity, find something that is as useful as religion that will help man to be man not an animal.)
For me personally, cross of Christ gives meaning and purpose to my own crosses I carry everyday. First of all, it tells me that I cannot run away from these. Even God made man cannot escape the cross. Cross is part and parcel of human life whether you like it or not.
Secondly, it tells me that this too will pass away. Crosses are temporary. After the cross there is Resurrection. Persevere, you will come out victorious. Is it not our experience. So the sign of the cross means different from what it meant for that man on the tree in the story. The vertical line means “Calm down, do not be worried!”. And the horizontal line means “this too will pass away!”

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Let me conclude with what St. Paul said to Romans 8/35&37: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him loved us and gave his life for us. (Does it sound like a drug to the suffering man. Never mind. I’d prefer to take the drug to alleviate pain than disbelieve it and foolishly suffer it.)
God bless you all!