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We went to Borders one night, with me protesting ‘we don’t need any more books!’, and then this one just leapt into my hands from the shelf & made its way back home with us. The Sign of the Cross: Recovering the Power of the Ancient Prayer by Bert Ghezzi. (If you know me as well as J, you’d be just as un-surprised as he was.) If I remember rightly, I got it that week between hearing of John’s death and actually traveling out for the funeral. It struck me as I bought it how he probably would have liked it. As I’ve mentioned before, the cross of Christ was one of his favorite topics, which he passed on to me and became a source of great healing for me.

I picked up the habit of making the sign at our church in Chicago. It wasn’t something I grew up with; actually most if not all of the churches I attended previously would have frowned upon it. So I didn’t know what to think of it at first when I started attending the anglican church. At Rez, it was something many people did, including the staff & leaders, and they would explain it in the membership class & talk freely about it when asked, but it was never presented as any kind of requirement. Merely something they found useful that they would encourage others to try for themselves. So at some point in my years there I did try it, and found it very meaningful in my life.

It’s hard for me to explain why though, which was why I really appreciated this book. It’s a simple little book, only 110 pages. He does a great job mixing personal reflection with theology, based upon scriptures & tradition. He starts with a basic history, and many protestants may be surprised to learn that the sign began to surface very early in the pre-Constantinian church, and was maintained by the Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic & Eastern Orthodox traditions.

He then presents the reasons & theology underlying the most common understandings for making the sign of the cross:

• You confess your faith in the Trinity, and call upon His name as a way of entering into His presence.
• You choose to live out your baptism: death to sin, life in Him, and membership in the Body.
• You affirm your life as Christ’s disciple, and submission to His commands.
• You accept suffering as a part of the Christian life, and lean on His suffering.
• You claim the victory won on the Cross as a defense against temptation.

The sign of the cross can be made with different aspects in mind at different times, along with some measure of reflection & prayer. For me, I most often make the sign at an invocation of the Trinity and after taking communion. With the Trinity, I think for me part of it is a recognition of the holiness of God’s name and nature. I don’t think you can have a Christian understanding of God without the Trinity. For the early church, and I think still today, invocation of the Trinity was a strong declaration of the faith and a firm stand against heresy. The Trinity is also holy & beyond me, so making the sign is a recognition of how my only way to God was made by the Cross, which is the essence of our faith. Invoking His name is also to invite His presence more fully in, and so when someone speaks it out loud, inviting Him into a group or gathering, I affirm the corporate invitation and also personalize it by making the sign over myself.

Crossing myself at communion is a connection for me to my baptism. In an anglican baptism service, the baptised person is prayed for by the priest with a sign of the cross on the forehead and the spoken words, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” (See Eph 1:13 – “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit“). Every time I take communion, I affirm what I proclaimed with my baptism: my death to sin and new life in Him. The sign of the cross then is a physical reminder of the seal — communion reaffirms the promise made to me in baptism that I have been accepted and marked as His own forever. At the same time, in making the sign I also publicly accept that mark upon myself and its claim upon my life.

Of course, many may ask, as I once did, – why is a physical action even necessary? Isn’t reflection upon these realities enough? And for you they may be. But physical action can often serve as a way of re-centering our mind, of speaking to deeper realities, and bringing our physical self in line with our heart and mind. In our culture there are many physical actions we perform as connections to deeper realities: shaking hands in greeting, arms in the air to cheer at sporting events, the peace sign at rallies, folded hands in prayer. For me, the physical act often breaks into my wandering mind. It’s hard to think of something else when you are physically doing something. And so making the sign will bring my mind back into active engagement into the action around me, and cause my heart to refocus on the Cross and the majesty & mystery of a personal triune God. If you’ve never tried it, I’d encourage you to do so. You may be as surprised as I was by how it can touch your life.