The Cross of North Alabama now stands, a glistening white symbol raised Thursday morning to its prominent perch near Decatur with one group’s mission of helping share the hope and love the Bible says is found in Jesus.
A crowd gathered to watch, perhaps 200 people or more who lined the site just off Alabama Highway 67 in Priceville with their cars and lawn chairs and armed with cellphone cameras to capture the moment. The raising of the cross began a minute or two after 10 a.m. and the head of the construction company that raised it declared the process complete about 30 minutes later.
Related: Symbol of grace: 120-foot cross to overlook I-65 in north Alabama
It’s a striking structure, standing an attention-grabbing 120 feet tall a few yards off the busy highway in an otherwise rural area about two miles east of Interstate 65. And that’s the point.
Johnny Maxwell, the pastor of the non-denomination Nature’s Trail Church in Priceville, said he felt God had given him the vision for the cross 20 years ago. Close friends Tommy and Dee Livingston donated the land for the project.
“We want all Christians and all people who care about Jesus to know that they can come here,” Maxwell said Thursday. “This is a good place to kneel and pray and have your time with God.”
The site is essentially a construction zone at this point with the final exterior pieces of the cross expected to be in place by Friday. Eventually, though, Maxwell foresees the area becoming a 24-hour park with touchscreen stations to tell about the love of Jesus and the sacrifice made on the cross.
But the story of this cross – which, ultimately, is a visual – is what you will never see.
As a crane raised the cross off the ground, a sort of graffiti could be seen. Spray-painted on the interior pipe structure of the cross were the words “We love you Lord.”
“And if you went up closer to look at the bottom of that pipe, (Wednesday) evening there was a group of people who came out and wrote their name on it,” said Mike Rozier, whose Mississippi-based construction company built and raised the cross at cost. “They put scriptures on it. They wrote scripture verses all over that pipe.”
Rozier said this is the 16th cross his company has built and the first in Alabama. And such adorning of the inside of the crosses is not unusual, he said. But a while back, that adorning went to a new level.
“Four crosses ago that we built, the gentleman that was over the pastor of the church where we were putting it up, when we poured the foundation, he walked up. He took a Bible and he said ‘I want to throw my Bible in the bottom of that concrete foundation.’ I looked at him. I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ He said ‘No.’ And I couldn’t figure out why.
“And he looked at me and he said, “What better place to have God’s word than at the foot of the cross?’ And I just said, “Wow, yeah.” And we did (put the Bible in the foundation). And I told him, ‘I will never build another cross where there’s not a Bible in the bottom of the foundation.’”
For the Priceville cross, “This one has five Bibles at the bottom of the foundation,” Rozier said. “That’s special. What better place to put God’s word than at the foot of the cross? There ain’t no better place.”
One of those five Bibles, Maxwell said, was carried by a combat soldier in Iraq.
As the cross went up – a spectacle in itself with two teams of three men each guiding the cross into place with ropes along with the crane – Maxwell noted that the crowd remained quiet.
“They were reverent,” he said.
A smattering of applause arose when someone asked Rozier if the process was complete and he said it was. Beyond those few seconds of clapping, the crowd watched largely in silence.
Fundraising will continue for the $300,000 project and donations were accepted at the event Thursday. Contributions can also be made on The Cross of North Alabama website. The next step is landscaping and lighting at the site and Maxwell said an electrical contractor had already volunteered his services.
But the future of the cross is not so much in tangible achievements but instead as a more immeasurable symbol of hope. Off in the distance, traffic could be seen crossing the Tennessee River bridge on I-65. Maxwell’s anticipation is that maybe someone who can’t find hope who has reached the top of the bridge to end their search will notice the cross. And maybe they will renew their search.
Maxwell said his brother had helped rescue someone who jumped from the bridge in order to take their life. Two other people have shown Maxwell the bullet they had in guns they planned to use to kill themselves.
“That’s what this is really all about right here,” Maxwell said of the cross. “You’ve got to get people to have a relationship with Jesus. And whatever means necessary. Two people that were getting ready to commit suicide that I personally know, just by talking to them (they changed their mind). And there’s more than one way to reach people. That was just one.”
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120-foot cross raised in north Alabama as place ‘to have time with God’ - AL.com
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