Comment

I can’t speak for everyone, but when I wear a cross it’s in reference to Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

To me the cross is symbolic of finding the courage to live our lives motivated by a radical love in order to overcome the fear of death and pain.

It’s like Goku once said while fighting to save the world “this is the power to go further beyond”

source

Sort:hotnew top

jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I feel though like wearing a token cross in honor of being told to take up a more literal cross seems like paying lip service to a very serious call to action with very low actual stakes.

Like being told to stand up to the guns of an army to stand firm for justice and then wearing little rifle pendants instead claiming that means you look to live your life consistent with that principle even as you start well away from actual fighting.

You may personally of course live your life consistent with the values and that is just a symbol, but it’s broadly a symbol that has been cheapened by casual overuse, and to some extent corrupted by folks using it as a symbol of their alignment to God and implied divine authority granted by that association.

source
- RadicalEagle@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yeah, in my opinion it shows the power consumer culture has to erode the meaning of things. “This symbol used to stand for something, but it got too popular and now it’s just slapped on stuff to sell merch.”
  
  source
- bramkaandorp@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s a bit like being told to go out into the world and tell everyone about your religion, and you do it by taping a cardboard sheet to your front and back with “Jesus is Lord” written on it.
  
  source
  - RadicalEagle@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Haha, I can actually get down with that. Anyone crazy enough to do that is probably a genuine person who’s willing to engage with the insanity of existence.
    
    source
    bramkaandorp@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I was joking, though. There are actually people who wear sandwich boards with religious messages on them, specifically to fulfil they call to proselytise.
    
    They often stand near shops.
    
    I almost respect people who really try to talk to me more for actually fulfilling the spirit of it, rather than the letter.
    
    source
slightperil@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
That’s definitely the intended meaning of wearing a cross, and a really powerful and important scripture.

It’s worth remembering though that ‘cross’ isn’t the word that Jesus said here but the Greek word recorded is stau·rosʹ which means execution or torture stake and the cross wasn’t a contemporary use for impailment by the Romans, primarily because a stake was a much more painful death than a cross.

The cross was a pagan idol for many centuries before Jesus death and was later rolled into the account of Jesus’ death by the later Christian Church to help with the conversion of those pagans.

source
- otterpop@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Do you have any sources on the claim that it wasn’t a cross and was changed later for pagans? The scripture references “coming down” from the cross which to me would imply the one we typically think of.
  
  Also from en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impalement,
  
  "I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made differently by different [fabricators]; some individuals suspended their victims with heads inverted toward the ground; some drove a stake (stipes) through their excretory organs/genitals; others stretched out their [victims’] arms on a patibulum [cross bar]; I see racks, I see lashes … "
  
  Sounds like Seneca, a figure from exactly this time period confirms the type of cross we think of.
  
  source
  - raltoid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    Do you have any sources on the claim that it wasn’t a cross and was changed later for pagans?
    
    No they do not, because the early symbol was already T.
    
    There are writings from ~200s talking about how the letter T looks like the execution cross.
    
    source
    otterpop@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Another good piece of evidence I just thought of is the oldest known depiction of Jesus: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito
    
    It seems the claim might originate with Jehovah’s Witnesses in modern times.
    
    source
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Potential problem:

The Greek word that is, in basically every English translation, rendered as ‘cross’… does not actually specifically mean ‘cross’.

The word is stauros.

What it literally means is roughly ‘pole’ or ‘stake’, and was colloqiually used at the time to just refer to any configuration of wooden poles upon which one would be crucified… which, while yes, were often in the shape of a cross, they also often weren’t… maybe a T, or an X, or just a straight pole.

The English ‘crucify’ is built on the assumption that it was an actual cross. In greek, the verb for ‘crucify’ is stauroo, unconjugated; ‘to fasten to a stake or pole.’

… Its kind of like how ‘Matthew’ incorrectly translates the Hebrew word almah into the Greek word for ‘virgin’, when he quotes Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:22-23, to say that Jesus’ birth fulfils prophecy.

Almah, in Hebrew, just means ‘young woman’… basically, of marriage age, so for the time, that would basically be… post-puberty, roughly 14, up to maybe early 20s.

It can mean ‘virgin’, but it does not specifically, necessarily mean ‘virgin’… in roughly the same way in English, right now, a ‘young woman’ could be a vrigin, is probably more likely to be a virgin than an old woman, generally speaking… but it absolutely does not categorically mean ‘virgin’.

source