Good Friday: A Day for the Crucifix

F or years it sat atop my grandfather’s dresser in his Bronx house on East 236th Street, haunting and a bit of a misfit: The crucifix is elaborate, essentially a story, chockablock with symbols of Christ’s hours of passion and torment, while its deeply reserved possessor — I called him “Grapes” — was not known for displays of religiosity or sermons (except for those directed at the street urchins making too much noise). Make no mistake: He was a good man who went to church. But he was overtly religious about one thing: the New York Mets.

And yet he had this ornate crucifix, and it fascinated the little boy. Half a century later, it still does. Why did he have it? Displayed next to an ancient photo of his mother and another of his sisters, it seemed to have already been around for a long time. No one is sure of its origin (no one ever asked!), so we guessed that it might have been a wedding present, or maybe even the crucifix of his own parents, Italian immigrants who came to lower Manhattan and then the Bronx to raise ten children.

Most crucifixes are wall-mounted, often adorned with palms, often watching over the parental bed. My grandfather’s is like a museum piece. With faux gold effects (it remains shiny and untarnished), it is a slice of Golgotha, the cross bearing the nailed and dead Christ atop a mound of brass-ish land, that atop a wooden base — felt-topped — with three rough, squat legs.

The felt is there for a reason: to cushion the glass silo (unscratched by the decades — how did that not break in various moves?) that contains the entire production. The silo gives it an air of treasure — for aren’t things beautiful and rare contained in glass?

Grandpa’s Crucifix came into my possession after having spent decades in his. Then, when Gran went into nursing care, it passed into my mother’s possession and was a sentry in her room for 20 years. And now that she has moved into such care herself, it has come into mine, although I believe I am only its steward, not its owner.

It evokes complex feelings — one wants to study it, deeply curious, while such investigating calls to mind the pain of the Passion. It stops short of anything to do with Resurrection.

If a crucifix can be festooned, this one is, with more than a dozen symbols. At the base of the cross, on Jesus’s right, is a chicken on a pillar. Or so thought the little boy. It is a rooster, a cock — the thing which thrice crowed to punctuate Peter’s denial of Christ. And the pillar represents the one on which Jesus was brutally scourged. Balancing this on the left is a garment, topped by dice: the garment for which the Roman soldiers cast lots.

Hanging from the arms of the cross is the scourging whip and what seems to be a lantern — for that, I cannot figure the reason. Possibly it signifies the light used by the crowd finding Jesus in Gethsemane, or maybe it is not so much a lantern as a container (say, for 30 pieces of silver). Atop the arms, on the Lord’s right, is a cup — surely the Holy Grail used at the Last Supper. To the left is a jug. Maybe this contained the vinegar given to Jesus after he uttered, “I thirst.”

Or maybe it is a reference to the act that commenced the Passion, from Luke 22: “And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.”

At the cross’s base is a skull, and atop that, but below the nailed feet of the Lord, is an X formed by a sword and what seems to be a club. From Matthew 26: “Just then, while Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve apostles, arrived. A large crowd carrying swords and clubs was with him.” And at the cross’s top is the sign, “INRI”: Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum.

Behind the cross is a movable ladder, its legs able to fit into two holes — less a symbol than a necessary tool to remove Christ when he had died. Beside it, also behind the cross, also able to fit into two holes on this display’s version of the Place of the Skull, are four items united in an X, the spear used to pierce Jesus’s side matched with another long and thin item: a stick, on the end of which is affixed a sponge. From Matthew: “‘He’s calling Elijah.’ One of the men ran at once, took a sponge, and soaked it in some vinegar. Then he put it on a stick and offered Jesus a drink. The others said, ‘Leave him alone! Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.’” At their center — providing an unintended, faintly communist whiff — are a hammer, to nail Jesus, and pliers, to remove them upon His death.

Does my grandfather’s crucifix evoke some culture? It seems not Italian, which makes it odd for an Italian to own. Could it be from a Polish or German or Croatian tradition — not that I wouldn’t want to assign this thing of deserved fascination to a particular people. But it is, well, just not beautiful. Not that a crucifix should be “beautiful” — but I have seen many that are majestic and worthy of being called art.

That does not diminish the purpose and consequence of this item. Maybe the fact that it is thick with symbols, details (the three dice add up to ten), and housed under glass — oh, yes, and its “subject matter” — and the additional fact that it evokes a response (“That’s kind of cool,” or “I’ve never seen anything like that before . . .”), and the ensuing, unavoidable curiosity that seeks to place the symbols in the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus, show that even in its poor man’s Michelangelo presentation, Grandpa’s Crucifix has been worth preserving. It tells quite well, even in laminated metal, its part of the Greatest Story Ever Told.

This being Good Friday, Christians might do well to reflect on this religious item, or any crucifix in your vicinity, and see where it takes the heart and the soul.