A couple of years ago our senior minister, Michael Lindvall, asked me to craft a bronze Celtic cross for the courtyard that was created when we built a chapel on the south side of our church. Although we have a large, beautiful wooden cross in the chancel inside of our church building, there has never been one outside.

Traditionally, Celtic crosses have been used as teaching tools. Many were covered with Celtic decorative designs, but some had simple depictions of Gospel stories that were designed for people who were, on the whole, illiterate. I liked this aspect of their use and began to pray about it and never quit. My daily and hourly prayer was that the cross would glorify God; everything fell into place as I proceeded. There were many options to consider but the ones I chose percolated into my thinking unimpeded and naturally. I began making sketches in the clay, beginning with the Temptation and the Fall. When I finished, there were 41 panels of settings from the Old and New Testaments.

I had in mind that the cross would be a constant reminder and encouragement for all who pass by, day in and day out, especially, the children. I thought about how the Lord admonished Israel about keeping the Law foremost in their thinking: “And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates.” Deut.6:6-9

The cross, as you well know, is a symbol that represents the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for our sins, but it has become a symbol sanitized of its’ awful reality. We can scarcely begin to grasp what transpired on that cross when the wrath of a just God was unleashed upon our Lord. This is why I depicted the Seraphs covering their eyes at the horrendous thing they were witnessing: there, hanging between heaven and earth at a place of refuse, was God our Savior, saving “His people from their sins”. All that the Law demands and the cumulative requirements of the sacrificial system were summed up and fulfilled in this single event.

I am indebted to: Andy Pappas for his careful foundry work over the two and a half year process; to Richard Stuber who insisted on a good installation; and to my wife, Marion, who adjusted the outline of the cross and took the photos.

DEDICATED NOVEMBER 19, 2000 - Given in memorial to Peg Molin by Keith Molin

Detailed photos of the cross can be seen at
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mmpowrs/front.html