As a symbol, the cross...
Illustration
As a symbol, the cross has shown up in a number of surprising places, but as far as we know, it was never erected at the North Pole until 1998. That's the year a Russian priest named Viktor Smetanikov installed a nine-foot-high wooden cross on an ice flow there, and then offered prayer.
And how did he get himself and the cross there? By parachute. The jump was organized by Russia's Olympic Committee.
Smetanikov, senior priest of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, arranged the trip as a commemoration of 400th anniversary of Russia's conquest of Siberia. A spokesman for the church said that Smetanikov was the first member of the clergy to visit that location (reported in The Plain Dealer, May 7, 1998, A18).
The event was certainly dramatic, but the cross is the wrong symbol to commemorate a conquest. It must be recognized as a symbol of power taken away, surrendered up, laid down. And the conquest of death that followed is marked by an open tomb, not by a cross.
We should "cherish the old rugged cross" but not forget that it is "an emblem of suffering and shame," which is exactly why what happened there to the Son of God is effective for redeeming us
And how did he get himself and the cross there? By parachute. The jump was organized by Russia's Olympic Committee.
Smetanikov, senior priest of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, arranged the trip as a commemoration of 400th anniversary of Russia's conquest of Siberia. A spokesman for the church said that Smetanikov was the first member of the clergy to visit that location (reported in The Plain Dealer, May 7, 1998, A18).
The event was certainly dramatic, but the cross is the wrong symbol to commemorate a conquest. It must be recognized as a symbol of power taken away, surrendered up, laid down. And the conquest of death that followed is marked by an open tomb, not by a cross.
We should "cherish the old rugged cross" but not forget that it is "an emblem of suffering and shame," which is exactly why what happened there to the Son of God is effective for redeeming us
