Symbology of the Cross

I had a thought walking home today across Hythe Bridge in Oxford about the cross and it's representation in Protestant theology and liturgy....

What I was thinking about tonight walking home was the symbology of the cross as a representation of the Christian faith. Through about five minutes of internal discussion I reached the, at this point loosely held, conclusion.

The cross is insufficient symbologically. I purposefully use the Pauline language and mean this to be heretical in a religious sense. It is not the cross that tore the veil between myself and divinity but the work done upon it. In this sense, I find myself identifying with the traditionally Catholic depiction of the cross in which the passion of the Christ is addressed. This is why...

I feel that, particularly in the western Protestant tradition, we have and are continuing to lose our identification with the suffering of Christ. The absolute violence of what happened seems conspicuously overlooked. What does the cross mean? Is it simply a abstract expression of geometry employed as a unifying symbol; or a portrait of the suffering of Jesus? Symbol and representation, or perhaps intentional non-representation? In identifying, praying with, or simply looking upon the Christian cross, one is engaging in a type of knowledge production about it in the context of all Christendom. What it represents, but also what it doesn't represent. What of the message of Christ is excluded from the empty cross?

While I believe that the empty cross is generally meant to symbolize the work that is finished to most Christians, in my mind it does not adequately express the work that was done. If Christians were compelled to become more fully Christian subjects by systematically exposing themselves to the Passion of the Christ and not just the Resurrection, what would that mean? The somberness of our faith, or what CS Lewis called the "Weight of Glory" might be artificially abated by viewing and contemplation of an empty cross. There have been many empty crosses throughout history, but only one on which the Son of Man was crucified. How much of the weight of glory are we willing to assume?