Introduction: what ancient stones can teach modern Christians

Britain contains many ancient monuments, works of human hand and imagination, that reach to us across the centuries, and in some cases across the millennia, which witness to the concerns of those who created them. 

During the last two millennia, those concerns have included expressions of the Christian faith. Most obviously, perhaps, this has taken the form of the erection of church buildings (or in the earliest days the re-use of temples and meeting places originally built as centres of devotion for the old belief systems which were being abandoned.) 

The problem with trying to reconstruct the history of the development of Christian places of worship is that the earliest buildings were most likely built out of wood, and have vanished completely, and in most cases the desire of later Christians to preserve their life and witness on the same site has meant that any traces that might have been left will have been obliterated by later building work. However, once Christian builders began to use stone, then the chances of something from their era still being available to us today increased immensely.

One theory goes that before there were permanent buildings, there may have been just places where people met to hear the Gospel preached to them. Some of these places will have been unmarked, but known from their place in the landscape - whether a hilltop or at a crossroads. Other places had Christian markers set up, and the clearest Christian expression was then, as it still is today, the erection of a cross, representing the scene of Jesus Christ's saving work for all people.

These Preaching Crosses were often very substantial affairs, so that they could be seen for some distance. Four meters, twice as tall as a person, was a fairly common height - and a handful of these very tall crosses have survived.

Crosses were also erected as monuments to dead Christians, and as well as marking the place where their earthly remains were interred, they also proclaimed the Christian faith and hope of the deceased people.

Many of the pre-Norman monuments carry no inscription at all, so that it can only be conjectured what they represented, if it was anything other than proclaiming by their presence a location for Christian worship.

In Derbyshire, a number of churches that date back to early Norman times have tall crosses standing outside them that are even older, and it is not hard to imagine that most significant churches will have had a tall cross outside them at some stage. It is interesting to compare and contrast the churches which had such crosses with the major centres of population today: many of the larger towns today were founded much later than the small villages which still have their ancient churches.

Sometimes, crosses were erected elsewhere, such as in market places or by the roadside, to proclaim God's love, and to give people places to practice their devotions while on long journeys - many of which will have been pilgrimages.

Out of their devotion to God, the sculptors who produced these crosses ornamented them with designs which portrayed aspects of the Christian faith and also included other elements which speak down the ages of the cultural identities of those people. Christianity has always served the people best when it has meshed with their culture, and there are lessons to be learned from these monuments by those of us who would seek to tell people the Good News about Jesus Christ; lessons about speaking to the people in clear unmistakable ways that take account of their cultural experiences and expectations. Only when the Christian Gospel is spoken and lived in ways relevant to its hearers will it become the transforming word of the Lord for them.

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