Religion is one of the essential parts of human life. Different religions have different customs and traditions. There are a lot of religions all over the world. The most widespread one is Christianity. Religion is a belief. People go to church to pray to their God, to ask for some soul power to sustain some life difficulties, to get rid of some sins by telling them and to clear their soul from bad thoughts. Religion is a great power which turns people to good and godly actions.
One of the main symbols of religion is a cross. Looking on the cross, people remember about Christ’s torments for the sake of their lives and pray. They pray for Him, for their lives and health, they pray for peace, in order that the Christ’s death was not in vane. Cross is the symbol of delivering people from their sins. This was the purpose of the Son of God, who came into this world and died on the cross. He sacrificed his life for our sake, for our happiness. And people remember about it and come to the cross to pray.
John Bunyan in his book writes that the cross is usually connected with the first comforts of believer, but still its nature should be perceived more fully. The cross is a gathering of sins which people carry on their shoulders, and only coming to the church, standing near the crucified Christ on the cross and praying may help people burden of those sins.
The cross became the symbol of the sins of all humanity after the Son of the God went through the whole city caring this cross as if he carried all people’s sins. Christ died for sinners on the cross, and the cross also became a symbol of his death. “The view of the cross, as the grand display of all the harmonious perfections of the Godhead, softens, humbles, and ameliorates the heart” (Bunyan, 1998).
The most exciting moment in the book by John Bunyan is when a Christian comes along the cross. This episode shows the attitude to the cross as a religion symbol of not only one person but the whole Christian mankind.
“He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre” (Bunyan, 1998). The cross on the grave is the symbol of the ending of people’s sinning life on the earth.
The person, as Christ, lived and carried his own cross of sins on his shoulders. And after his death, his burden of sins which he carried fell down and the cross on the sepulchre shows that he cleared from all sins and come to another world without any sins: he left them on the earth in a form of a cross, as the cross is a symbol of sin.
The cross as a religion symbol is rather complicated notion. It characterizes the sins in general and the clearing of these sins. The cross is characterized as a death of Christ and at the same time as a hope for people for a new, lighter and better life, as it was the main purpose of Christ’s death. And everybody’s life is also connected with the cross as the symbol of releasing from the death.
Works Cited
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. USA: Oxford University Press, 1998.