Q>>>I can imagine Christ exalting in an empty cross.
Q>>>It’s hard to impossible for me to imagine Him exalting in an image of Himself still on a cross.
Consider the words of St Paul:
1 Cor 1:23 -- But we preach Christ crucified: unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness:
1 Cor 2:2 -- For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ: and him crucified.
Gal 3:1 -- O senseless Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth: before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been set forth, crucified among you?
All throughout St. Paul's letters, it's clear he talks about the sacrifice of Christ and the reality of the great price He had to pay for our redemption.
And I will tell you that regular and thorough contemplation of that price, through meditation of the account of His passion, tends to reduce one's sense of self-righteousness and increase one's level of humility. Thus, those peculiar Catholic traditions of crucifixes, passion plays, stations of the cross, &tc.
Now I can appreciate the desire of an iconoclast to get rid of ALL images, all visual cues and reminders, including the empty cross, in order to remove the possibility of something being perceived as bowing down to an idol. I don't agree and think it is misguided, but I can understand it.
And I absolutely can agree that some of the modernist depictions of the crucifix are horrendous.
But, in light of the Scriptures, I cannot fathom why the revulsion that some have toward the traditional image of Christ crucified.
PREACHING about
CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED
is exceedingly different, to me, than even gazing meditatively at a crucifix.
That Old Testament prohibition is fiercely in my bone marrow.