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 As it has been said, if we don’t know the reason and meaning behind our gestures and symbols, they can be meaninglessand confusing. I never want our gestures, actions, and movements in our weekly service to be impediments to worshiping and experiencing God.  

The intention is that those things that we practice and incorporate into our worship are aids in bringing us deeper into the presence of God, that they give our souls and selves a sense of stability, and that they add a rich devotional dimension to our Christian lives.

With that said, one question you might be asking is, why do we at Church of the Good Shepherd cross ourselves, or make the sign of the cross? Let me give a few reasons below:

1.     It is an identity marker:  When we come together as Chris’s body, we remember who we are and whose we are. We have been purchased at a price (1 Cor 6:20) and we belong to God — we have been purchased by the precious blood of Christ, by way of his cross. Moreover, the cross is a symbol of the fact that we are also loved by God, and I mark myself with the symbol of his love for me (Jn 3:16). I am my beloveds, and my beloved is mine (Song of Sg 6:3).

2.     It reminds us of our baptism: In our baptism, the priest/pastor uses oil and anoints the newly baptized making the sign of the cross saying, “[Your name], you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s forever” (BCP 2019, 189). When we cross ourselves in worship, we remind ourselves of our baptism in Christ, that we belong to him and to his church.

3.     It can be a part of embodied participation:Much of our church experience can be focused on the mind, or thinking about doctrine and theology (these are good things), but we are more than brains. All of the gestures in our service invite us to use our bodies, or whole selves in an act of worship (Rom 12: 1).

4.     The people of God are those who are marked: See Ezekiel 9:7 and Revelation 7:3, 9:4, and 14:1, all of which describe believers bearing God’s seal on their foreheads. That mark was a cross — the Greek letter tau — that was written as a T and stood for the name of God. We are also reminded of Paul’s words, “You have been stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit of the Promise” (1 Cor. 1:13).

5.     It is a sign of both giving and invoking a blessing. There are certain times throughout the service that we will cross ourselves, or that the pastor/priest will make the sign of the cross. 

  • We can cross ourselves whenever we speak the name of God (“the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”). This is a physical reminder of our belief in the triune God.
  • We cross ourselves on our foreheads, lips, and hearts before the gospel reading, praying that the Lord would mark his gospel on our minds, lips, and hearts.
  • During the Nicene Creed, we cross ourselves at the mention of the “resurrection of the dead.”
  • I make the sign of the cross over the bread and the wine during communion as I set the elements apart and consecrate them as Holy.
  • I make the sign of the cross to bless you at the end of the service, as well to bless children during the Eucharist.  

6.     It is a part of our Christian heritage that we see very early on in the church: St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) in his Catechetical Lectures stated, “Let us then not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Be the cross our seal, made with boldness by our fingers on our brow and in everything; over the bread we eat and the cups we drink, in our comings and in our goings out; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we awake; when we are traveling, and when we are at rest” (Catecheses, 13).

In the Fourth-century, Father of the Church St. Basil (329–379) said that the Apostles “taught us to mark with the sign of the cross those who put their hope in the Lord.” We don’t do things just because they are part of a tradition; we do them because they have meaning, because they are symbols and gestures of a different culture, a kingdom culture to which we belong and are participants.

We are a people who are defined by a different Father, Lord, and family.  I invite you to make the sign of the cross each and every week, as we all practice — through words, gestures, symbols, meal, and song — being kingdom citizens.