Protestants and the Crucifix

Cleaning Woman Washing a Crucifix 1938

 They crucified  my Lord,
 and he never said a mumbalin' word;
 they crucified my Lord,
  and he never said a mumbalin' word.
  Not a word, not a word, not a word.

African-American Spiritual -- Voices United 141

This photo floated into my consciousness on Twitter yesterday with the caption you see, but no other information and it fascinated me. Where was the photo taken? Did the priest/cleric of this church know what was happening on what appears to be the front steps? Why was so much "holy hardware" in need of cleaning, and in particular, why did the crucified Christ need to be hosed down? We'll never know.

This brought to mind a question from our son when he was a teen. He noticed that there were plenty of crosses in the large church in Halifax where I was a minister, yet not a single crucifix. It was a fair question and I think I gave him some Protestant blah, blah about our emphasis on the empty cross of resurrection. But I figure that it has more to do with Protestants not-like-them aversion to Roman Catholics for centuries. Yet Easter doesn't make much sense without Good Friday, something we Protestants seem to forget at times. Mainline denominations such as the United Church of Canada have plenty of cross and crucifixion hymns for Holy Week but who shows up to sing them?

Barbed Wire Crucifix -- James Quentin Young

I wonder if this Lent (next week is Ash Wednesday) we could all put up an image of the crucified Christ as one of the things we "take on" for the season rather than "give up?" They aren't hard to find in the age of the internet. Whether virtual or actual, the representation of Jesus on the cross speaks to us of God's saving grace and calls us to gratitude.

This Salvador Dali crucifixion is well known. A framed copy was given to my clergy father-in-law when he left a pastorate forty years ago. I recall that he didn't quite know what to make of it!



Christ of St John of the Cross -- Salvador Dali

Here comes the sun in today's Groundling blog
https://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.com/2019/02/here-comes-sun-thank-god.html