That signing with the cross is not an act of magic, not “mere” ritual. My exercise of faith, based on baptismal fact, prepares me in faith for when things go wrong, as they will each day.
It is so very easy to experience joy when a healthy child emerges from between a mother’s thighs, when a patient hears that a tumor is benign, when anyone falls in love or rises to the challenges of a good marriage. Easy joy, however, like “cheap grace,” does not get one through a day in which disappointment may nag, depression could haunt, despair even beguile and disease might seem to rule. The joy I seek and that is my gift is of the enduring sort that comes to all who need that daily fix, and who can live on the “high” that return to baptism, signified by the signing of the cross and saying a repentant prayer brings. Joy? God promised it to us.
Rev. Martin Marty is a church scholar and Lutheran theologian and the author of more than 50 books. He is also a speaker, columnist, pastor and teacher, and professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.
