On
the very last day of my summer trip, described in preceding entries, I stopped along
the interstate in Groom, Texas to see the world’s largest cross. It was built
by the Catholic Church and is a frame covered with what appears to be
fiberglass siding. It was big, all right, but the surrounding prairie, and the
mass of air in the fierce wind, was much larger.
This
is not the Precious Moments Chapel in Missouri. This is a courtyard with metal
statues that depict the last moments of Jesus in graphic detail. Whatever else
may or may not be true about Christianity, Jesus was certainly a lover of
humankind and certainly suffered intensely for it. Even an atheist would be
moved by it. And the statues depicted some defiantly altruistic things that
Jesus did. In one statue, he is encouraging his female followers to remain
courageous, even as he is dying—women whom he may have considered his equals.
In another statue an obviously black Simon of Cyrene (also known in scripture
as Niger) helps him carry his cross. You cannot sanitize or trivialize a story
like this. If you cannot handle brutal human reality, don’t stop here—go on to
the Precious Moments Chapel instead.
Inside
the gift shop, it was a different story. It wasn’t quite Precious Moments, but
it told quite a different story than the statues outside. Decorations were for
sale that celebrated patriotism (implying the United States is God’s nation).
You can buy a reproduction of the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware.
The connection with Jesus is not immediately evident. So while the gift shop
has the same flag-waving consumerism as does most of conservative Christianity
today, the statues outside confront us with the story of a man so good that
history has been unable to explain him.
The
photographs show Simon Niger helping Jesus with his cross, and Pontius Pilate
trying to evade his role in the messy and religion-drenched political history
of the ancient Near East.
