Processional Cross

The processional cross dedicated November 20, 2005, was designed by Mary Wiese Gundelach. Deborah Lozier from Berkeley achieved the enamel on metal and Adam Clark of San Francisco developed and fabricated the bronze.

The processional cross was made possible by funds dedicated to this purpose by First Lutheran Church member Carolyn Swanson together with others who contributed to the effort. The former brass cross, dedicated in the late 50s to the memory of FLC charter members Otto and Alma Nelson by their children, will be retired and may be placed in a designated place on chosen occasions.

Artist Mary Gundalach Comments on the Design:

The concept for this cross came to me several years ago, when Professor Emeritus Everett Kalin of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary visited our Adult Forum to share insights into the Book of Romans. My meditations, particularly from chapters five through eight, continued to influence me as I sketched and painted the design. As I thought about our baptism, our death in the death of Christ and his life being our life, the forms and colors evolved.

The processional cross, as used in our liturgy, calls our attention to God's great gift of pardon for the entire human race, personalized for us in our reconciliation with one another. (Romans1:16-17) In our worship service, when we turn towards the rear of the nave, we do so as a community to respect the Christ of our lives. After our confession and God's absolution, we follow the cross to the altar area where we hear The Word and receive the living, forgiving Christ through the Eucharist. We begin at the baptismal font where a new pattern for living is our gift and we return to the font at the end of worship re-charged to '"love and serve the Lord.'"

I chose to use the Greek version of the cross because its shape seemed visually appropriate to the altar area. It also holds meaning because the first cross found in Christian art is believed to be one with equal arms, which appeared in the fifth century on a Vatican sarcophagus. The corpus on the cross did not appear in Christian art until the seventh century, and various forms of the cross have been found in almost every part of the world that predate the Christian era. Greek translations of the Gospels, as well as other references (Acts 5:30, 1 Peter 2:24), probably refer to Jesus' suffering and death on a stake.

The processional cross from our sister parish, Rios de Agua Viva, emphasizes a painted figure of the Christ. To complement this painted cross, I emphasized the resurrected Christ, triumphant from the cross and grave, keeping his promise that he is with us always and unconditionally. We live in this hope, which is ours by grace, a place where God appears when all may be hopeless, where there is pain, fear, suffering, aloneness, meaninglessness, and disappointment.

Artistic symbols are of little value unless they have hooks into meanings that are grounded in our being, helping us to search for the intent. There is no symbol that strikes each of us with identical meaning. The design for this processional cross suggests lilies rooted and growing in every direction. In earlier Christianity, the lily was a reminder of the Annunciation, the proclamation of promise and hope from God to his people. This hope is now rooted in our lifeblood, through faith, as the waters of our baptism flow over us. What is our response? Lilting shapes and forms moving from the finite to infinite spaces like music, other arts, life's responses, all are vehicles of our worship.

The enamel process involves fusing glass onto metal, usually copper, silver or gold, and dates back to thirteenth century Egyptian pieces, or to 4000 BC methods that predated fusion. Enamel brings durability and longevity to the color of the piece and it seemed an appropriate and exciting way to translate my initial sketches.

If you look closely, one side of the enamel design is a mirrored image of the other, although they take on different colors and different emphases. This concept unfolded through the suggestion of the enamel artist as we collaborated on the piece. I feel it is a serendipitous symbol of the mirrored joy of our hope in Christ in each of us.

O come, let us sing unto the Lord,
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving,
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
O come, let us worship and bow down. (Ps. 95:1-3)

About the artists