Oh, how I wish Rome didn’t have a monopoly on making the Sign of the Holy Cross. How I wish Christians didn’t view making the Cross before/after praying, when partaking of the Eucharist, at Baptism, etc.  as “something Roman Catholics do.” Part of me exclaims “Oh, to heck with what the majority of Christianity thinks! I’m Crossing myself!” Yet my other, more respectful self says, “Lucas, respect the your peers and elder’s beliefs. It isn’t a hill to die on.”

And of course it isn’t. It’s a sign, and merely that. But it represents more than the Cross. Chiefly, it is a reminder that I’ve been baptized. That MATTERS. No matter what one think Baptism “does” – whether it only represents cleansing, or whether it actually does the cleansing – the fact that one has been been baptized matters greatly, and should be remembered. On one certain occasion Martin Luther, the Great Reformer, was being tempted tirelessly by Satan, so he supposedly threw his ink-well across the room at the wall and shouted “I have been baptized! I am a Christian!” To remember one’s baptism, be it credo or paedo, is to remember that they have been marked as one of God’s Fold, they have been set apart.

To Cross oneself is not only to remember baptism, but to remember what has been done and what that implies: Christ died for the whole world, and that should by no means be forgotten at any time. That should have great implications on one’s life. This fact ought to provide fuel for the fight against sin, so to remind oneself of that regularly is healthy.

So, one side of me exclaims emphatically that every Christian should Cross themselves.

But my other, more cautious side says that there is surely a reason that a large portion of Christians don’t make the Sign. Unfortunately, doing something repeatedly, no matter what that is,  typically gets mundane, ritualistic, thoughtless, and taken for granted. Obviously, the same goes for making a hand sign, no matter how great or small its meaning is. This is why many churches, mine included, don’t partake of the Eucharist on a weekly basis. While I feel that the Holy Communion ought to be partaken of weekly, that is for another blog post.

Anyway, unless the vast majority of Protestants change their view of the Sign of the Holy Cross, I would caution those bold protestants out there, saying “Hey! I want to do that too!” to abstain from making the Sign in public (if you want to in private, by all means, go ahead), because when someone sees that sign, they automatically think, “that person is Roman Catholic.” Not that there is anything wrong with Roman Catholics, but there are reasons that we Protestants aren’t Catholic.

In Christ,

Lucas.