What is on your wrist, where it comes from, and what to say when someone asks.
Sooner or later someone will look at your wrist and ask what the symbol means. You can answer in one breath.
It is a cross with wings. The cross is where He died. The wings are for the morning He rose.Fifteen seconds
The rest of these pages is the long answer. It follows the watch itself: the dial, twelve o'clock, the clasp, the caseback.
A cross was the worst thing the Roman world could do to a man. It was built to end a story in public.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.1 Corinthians 1:18
The first Christians took the instrument that was meant to shame them and made it their sign. They could do that for one reason: it had not worked.
The cross is on your dial because the tomb was empty.
On your dial the cross has wings. They are there for the third day.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.Matthew 28:6
Scripture speaks of that rising in the language of wings.
But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.Malachi 4:2
The winged cross is also the mark of this house. You will find it on the crown of every VIRTUSOR. We chose this watch to carry it on the dial, for the meaning behind it: death and rising, in one sign.
At twelve there is a small knot of three arcs. It is called a triquetra.
Look closely. It is drawn with a single line that never breaks, and yet you count three. Christians have used it for more than a thousand years to say what is hardest to say: one God, three persons.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.Matthew 28:19
Most believers can say the three names. Fewer can say what each one does on an ordinary day. Open each.
Three persons, one God. No drawing explains it. The knot only helps a man remember it.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.2 Corinthians 13:14
A watch divides the day into parts. If it helps, here are three prayers, one for each part. Take them or leave them.
Turn your wrist over. Many watches carry a crown on the clasp. Yours carries a cross.
A crown on a clasp says the man wearing it is king. A cross says who the King is.
Open the clasp and you find two words that only you will read.
GOD'S TIME
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.Ecclesiastes 3:1
You close those words over your wrist every morning. That is the whole ritual.
The back of the watch rests on your skin. Nobody else sees it.
CARRY THE LIGHT
I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.John 8:12
The light is His. The words on your watch are the part that is yours: carry it. Into the office, onto the site, into the house you come home to.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.Matthew 5:16
Read the end of that verse again. A man carries the light so that Someone else gets the glory.
The first believers had seen crosses used. They marked their tombs and their doors with a fish, an anchor, a shepherd.
The cross became the public sign of the faith only in the fourth century, when crucifixion was abolished in the empire. Once it was no longer used to kill, it could be seen for what it had become.
The sign of shame ended up on the crowns of kings.
Historians date the change to the time of the emperor Constantine.
A watch cannot pray for you, and it will not make you a better man.
You chose to be reminded. Many times a day your eyes go to your wrist. Now there is something there to meet them.
A symbol deserves a watch that lasts as long as it does. This is what yours is made of.