You can watch or read Elder Holland’s talk at: Lifted Up upon the Cross (churchofjesuschrist.org)

Elder Holland began by sharing a story about a conversation with a fellow graduate school student in which he unsuccessfully tried to answer the question: “Why have the Latter-day Saints not adopted the cross that other Christians use as a symbol of their faith?”

This morning, some 50 years later, I am determined to finish that explanation—even if every single, solitary one of you start looking at your wristwatches. As I attempt to explain why we generally do not use the iconography of the cross, I wish to make abundantly clear our deep respect and profound admiration for the faith-filled motives and devoted lives of those who do.

Have you ever wondered why we don’t have crosses or crucifixes on our buildings or wear them as jewellery?

One reason we do not emphasize the cross as a symbol stems from our biblical roots. Because crucifixion was one of the Roman Empire’s most agonizing forms of execution, many early followers of Jesus chose not to highlight that brutal instrument of suffering. The meaning of Christ’s death was certainly central to their faith, but for some 300 years they typically sought to convey their gospel identity through other means.

Early Christians used a number of symbols to express their faith and identity including the anchor (representing that their hope was anchored in Christ), the fish (Greek word for fish is ichtus or icthys – this was a Greek acrostic for Jesus Christ, God, Son, Saviour), and the Alpha and Omega (meaning the First and the Last or the Beginning and the End).

By the fourth and fifth centuries, a cross was being introduced as a symbol of generalized Christianity, but ours is not a “generalized Christianity.” Being neither Catholic nor Protestant, we are, rather, a restored church, the restored New Testament Church. Thus, our origins and our authority go back before the time of councils, creeds, and iconography. In this sense, the absence of a symbol that was late coming into common use is yet another evidence that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration of true Christian beginnings.

It has also been argued that the cross or crucifix represents the death of Christ when the message of the Gospel is that He lives!

Lastly, we remind ourselves that President Gordon B. Hinckley once taught, “The lives of our people must [be] … the symbol of our [faith].” These considerations—especially the latter—bring me to what may be the most important of all scriptural references to the cross. It has nothing to do with pendants or jewelry, with steeples or signposts. It has to do, rather, with the rock-ribbed integrity and stiff moral backbone that Christians should bring to the call Jesus has given to every one of His disciples. In every land and age, He has said to us all, “If any man [or woman] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

What do you think that President Hinckley said that our lives should be the symbol of our faith?

To be a follower of Jesus Christ, one must sometimes carry a burden—your own or someone else’s—and go where sacrifice is required and suffering is inevitable. A true Christian cannot follow the Master only in those matters with which he or she agrees. No. We follow Him everywhere, including, if necessary, into arenas filled with tears and trouble, where sometimes we may stand very much alone.

Here Elder Holland turns to the idea of bearing a cross or burden. What do you think he is referring to when he talks about arenas filled with tears and trouble? Do such arenas exist today?

As we take up our crosses and follow Him, it would be tragic indeed if the weight of our challenges did not make us more empathetic for and more attentive to the burdens being carried by others. It is one of the most powerful paradoxes of the Crucifixion that the arms of the Savior were stretched wide open and then nailed there, unwittingly but accurately portraying that every man, woman, and child in the entire human family is not only welcome but invited into His redeeming, exalting embrace.

How do our individual crosses make us more empathetic?

As the glorious Resurrection followed the agonizing Crucifixion, so blessings of every kind are poured out on those who are willing, as the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob says, to “believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross.” Sometimes these blessings come soon and sometimes they come later, but the marvelous conclusion to our personal via dolorosa is the promise from the Master Himself that they do and will come. To obtain such blessings, may we follow Him—unfailingly, never faltering nor fleeing, never flinching at the task, not when our crosses may be heavy and not when, for a time, the path may grow dark. For your strength, your loyalty, and your love, I give deep personal thanks. This day I bear apostolic witness of Him who was “lifted up” and of the eternal blessings He bestows to those “lifted up” with Him, even the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

What have you learned from Elder Holland’s talk? What difference will it make?

NB: Passages in italics are direct quoted from Elder Holland’s talk.