FMF: Empty

It's been a while since I've written in this blog in part because we've had a lot going on within our family life of late. I really want to get back into the habit of writing on a regular basis, so with that in mind, here's my contribution to this week's linkup at the Five Minute Friday community. This week's word prompt is EMPTY. Given that we've just been through Holy Week, I've been thinking and meditating on Christ's last week on earth and more particularly, on His death and resurrection. This prompt definitely pointed toward all these meditations for me, so that was the inspiration for this. I hope you find something in it to edify and encourage you. Happy Easter!

EMPTY

I have heard quite a few people ask the question of Catholics, “why do you keep Jesus nailed to the cross?” It's a good question. Most non-Catholic Christian churches do not have a cross with Jesus nailed to it. Their crosses are empty. Having grown up Baptist, I was always told that the reason the cross was empty was because He had overcome death. So if the empty cross is a symbol for Jesus having overcome death, then why do Catholics display and wear a crucifix?

There are a number of reasons for this, but the biggest of these is that having Jesus on the cross in front of our eyes makes it so that every time we see it, we are reminded of His great love for us – that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You see, it is death that we see when we look at a crucifix. It is an agonising, brutal, vicious, torturous death. It is also a beautiful death. That may sound strange, but think of it this way: not only did His death bring about redemption and the possibility of salvation for all of mankind, but He bore that death with the full knowledge that there would be those who would reject His love. When Catholics look at a crucifix, we are moved both by the agony of it and the beauty of it, because we see Him at His most loving.

One of the other things that a crucifix encourages us to do every time we look at it is to persevere as we carry our own crosses. It also encourages us that He is with us in that journey because He has been there and He knows the pain of carrying a cross. He knows it more perfectly and more fully than we will ever begin to fathom. So when we gaze upon the crucified form of Jesus on a cross, we can draw great strength from being reminded that He is with us, helping us to carry the crosses of life.

Finally, there is one Truth that we are reminded of every time we gaze upon a crucifix and that is this: there is no way to heaven but through the cross. To reach heaven, we must go through the cross. We can't go around it. We can't avoid it. We can't ignore it and pretend that it isn't there or that we don't need it. We need to embrace the crucified Christ because His love for us in that moment is what enables us to reach heaven.   

Without the crucifixion, there can be no resurrection and the resurrection – the empty tomb, not the empty cross – is the ultimate symbol of victory over death. That empty tomb is a promise that one day our own tombs will be empty because we will be raised up, our bodies made perfect because of Christ's death and resurrection, and we will be with Him for eternity, enjoying the beatific vision of God the Father.

So we keep Jesus on the cross – not because we are consumed with His death – but rather because seeing Him there is an unavoidable and constant reminder of just how much we are worth to God. When the world tells you that you are worthless or you feel like God doesn't love you or doesn't care about you, I encourage you to go look at a crucifix and meditate on what you see before you.

That, my friends, is the message of the crucifix. The crucifix in all its brutality with Jesus hanging upon the cross is a message of great love and of great hope. We know when we see it that this isn't the end of the story and so the crucifix points us toward the empty tomb and the resurrection. It gives us hope that our own crosses are not the end of our stories. It gives us hope that with His help, we can persevere to the end, having run the race to its completion and having obtained the prize of eternal life.