Surprises in the Cross

We had a plan for Easter. Our plan was not God’s plan. Our plan was to display our handiwork—a life-sized cross carefully woven from many strips of cloth—in our sanctuary for Easter morning. Our hope was that the cross we had labored over would be a colorful complement to our Easter morning lilies and tulips. But that was not at all what happened. Nothing could have prepared us for the wonderful shock of God’s inbreaking surprise.

Each year our congregation gathers on the Wednesday nights of Lent for worship and Bible study. This year we decided to share a simple meal of soup and bread, followed by a spiritual meal of Scripture and discussion. We had the idea to gather around this cross-craft project as we discussed the Bible passages. Our plan was simple and peaceful, even predictable.

The project had us using cross-stitch techniques on a large scale. Instead of the typical mesh fabric, we used rabbit wire, and we used strips of material instead of thread to make the twelve-by-six-foot “cross-stitched” resurrection cross. We invited members and friends to donate two articles of clothing: one to represent themselves in some way, and another worn by a loved one who had recently died. We were sure to let everyone know that the articles of clothing would be torn up.

We cut all of the donated clothing into strips and sorted them by color. Then we wove these hundreds of strips through the wire mesh like giant pieces of thread as we sat and talked about how our lives connected with the Scripture readings. The project was nothing out of the ordinary. We formed community as we wove the cross, and we noticed the ease with which our conversation flowed as we focused on the repetitive task of stitching. We were careful to make sure each piece of material was tightly sewn in so that the surface appeared almost like a quilt with tiny squares.

There was nothing surprising about the making of the cross itself. The surprise came later. Crafting the cross was a serene activity, even mundane in a comforting kind of way. We thought we knew exactly what we were doing. We were wrong.

The first surprise came on the second to last Wednesday of Lent. Nine-year-old Alicia held a T-shirt in her hands and asked me, “Pastor Doug, can you help me to put my daddy’s shirt in the cross?” Alicia’s 26-year-old dad, Fidel, had died a year and a half before of stomach cancer. His death had shaken his family and our congregation. We will never understand why such a gracious and gifted young father of two died after receiving so much love, support, and prayers. The T-shirt Alicia held out to me that day was the T-shirt Fidel had died in. Alicia and her brother, John, had been sleeping with the shirt since the day of his death. They didn’t want to wash it because they were afraid it would lose his scent. It was one of the few things they had that they could touch and smell to remember their father. They decided the time had come to give up the T-shirt, and they were eager to give it to the cross. Alicia had already cut several strips of cloth from the shirt in a sacred moment I will never forget. When I asked Alicia where she would like to weave in her daddy’s T-shirt, she said, “I want to put it right in the middle.” So together Alicia and I sewed strips of Fidel’s T-shirt right at the intersection of that cross. Alicia pointed to it and said, “Now I will know where my daddy’s shirt is on Easter morning.”
 

How to Make a Large Cross-Stitched Cross
Counted cross-stitch is a form of embroidery that follows a grid pattern. This is often facilitated by using as a canvas a material called aida cloth that has a discernible grid because of its loose weft. Embroidery thread is sewn in a repeating pattern of x’s. The colors and arrangement of Xs across the canvas creates an image with a pixelated appearance. The underside of the canvas is usually where thread is tied off or knotted together, giving it a more chaotic appearance than the topside.

For an upsized project like Hopewell Reformed Church’s, any flexible fencing in a grid pattern, such as rabbit wire or hardware cloth, would work as a canvas. Use wire cutters to trim the fencing to the desired size. The two crossbeams can be held in place with zip ties. Once the cross is shaped, wrap the edges in a neutral fabric or duct tape to cover any sharp spots. To keep the fencing from warping, consider making a rigid frame using bamboo poles or thin strips of wood zip-tied to the edges of the cross. This can be done before or after the embroidery process.

Instead of embroidery thread, use fabric cut into strips  thin enough to be threaded through the fencing but thick enough to be visible against the mesh backdrop. Uniformity in fabric type and size will contribute to more uniformity in the finished project. Use a single fabric strip for each X and knot it on the back side of the fencing. 

Consider planning a color pattern before beginning—dark colors at the top of the cross, for example, with lighter colors at the bottom, or perhaps a repeating pattern.You might otherwise limit the color palette ahead of time, such as using only strips of purple, white, and gold (the colors of Lent and Easter). Before Hopewell’s first stitching session, they painted the mesh according to a pattern and also distributed paper patterns to each volunteer. Their pattern was reminiscent of a quilt.

The next surprise came when George wove a brilliantly red, velvety material into the cross. I asked him where he had found such vibrant fabric. I wasn’t prepared for his answer. He said, “This was my wife’s Mrs. Claus suit. Before she died of breast cancer four years ago, we used to dress up in our Santa suits—me as Santa, she as Mrs. Claus—and we’d bring gifts to the kids at the children’s hospital. We did it every year. It’s not the same without her. This costume really represents who she was. She was such a beautiful person inside and out.”

More surprises followed. I saw Vernon’s neon-orange reflective worksite shirt in the cross, woven right next to a floral fabric from a blouse belonging to his wife, Palma. Vernon had been the village justice and the owner of the hardware store. I had conducted his funeral just two weeks before. Palma had died three years before. They were both bright lights in our community.

There was a story behind every single piece of cloth on that cross. The many strips of material were familiar and identifiable, but here they were woven together to form one beautiful quilted pattern on the cross. And as we wove in each piece, we told their stories. We laughed, cried, and remembered, and we each healed just a little bit more.

But the biggest surprise of all came on the Saturday afternoon before Easter.

Two of our consistory members climbed two tall ladders to hang the woven cross, which we had finally finished during Holy Week after hundreds of collective hours of diligent weaving. But something went wonderfully wrong. To make it easier to lift the cross in place, the two men hoisted it with the messy reverse side facing outward. The rest of us walked to the back of the church, eager to see the culmination of our work. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw. We accidentally caught a glimpse of the ragged backside of the cross before they had a chance to turn it around to show its proper side. It was a wonderful burst of messy color in no particular pattern at all. It seemed to us that the Mrs. Claus costume formed unintended accents of red where the hands, feet, and head of Jesus would have been, as if the blood of Christ were mixing with Fidel’s T-shirt. Fabric from the saints now in glory blended with the fabric of the living to form an explosive, chaotic, jagged-edged cross that  proclaims the resurrection.

We considered both sides of the cross and unanimously decided that the messy side was meant to be. Its perfection had nothing to do with our meticulous work on the side of the cross originally meant to be on view. Its perfection was in its wild proclamation of God’s surprising power despite our human efforts. We had no idea what we were creating—or what God was creating through us. 

It took our breath away on Easter morning—not just because of its color, not just because of the stories behind each strip of material, and not just because of the way it blended so beautifully with the tulips, but because it is a resurrection cross, a cross that boldly proclaims the vibrant power of life with God offered to us through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This same power that raised Jesus Christ from death to life is the power that births and nourishes faith deep within our hearts. 

We decided to keep the cross up through Pentecost. When we took the cross down, we let it go, just like Alicia let her father’s shirt go. I don’t know if the cross is still in storage. If it is, maybe we should send it to other churches as a traveling exhibition—not as a work of art, but as a proclamation of the risen Christ. It could travel with instructions for each church to craft their own cross during Lent. But be forewarned: We can send you plans for the cross’s construction, you can invest hours of diligent work in crafting the cross, but it may be that nothing will prepare you for the surprising stories and the powerful ways that God may break into your church. If you like the neat and the predictable, this project may not be for you.