As Christians we are used to seeing crosses portrayed as the central and identifying symbol of Christianity. Some Christians display their crosses with Jesus affixed to them, while other Christians have empty crosses, signifying that the crucified Jesus has been raised from the dead. In scripture, each gospel account propels us toward the cross; it’s almost as if all of Jesus’ teachings and healings are merely a prelude to the event of his crucifixion. Certainly, in Paul’s letters, the cross stands at the crux of his proclamation of God’s setting all things right in the death of Jesus. The story of Jesus and the Jesus movement cannot avoid the cross.
I’ve done a lot of thinking lately about how almost every aspect of Christianity has its root in the Judaism of the Old Testament: salvation, righteousness, justice, love, grace, and even resurrection. It dawned on me recently, though, that the cross is not mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures. Christians do see the “suffering of the Messiah” in the prophetic writings of Isaiah, but the cross itself is never mentioned. The ancient Greeks, Persians, and the Romans all used crucifixion as a form of state-sponsored torture, used to punish criminals, humiliate vanquished enemies, and suppress insurrectionists; the Jews did not. Crucifixion was not only a tragedy, but was also seen as a sign of God’s extreme displeasure with someone who got crucified. The Apostle Paul tries to make sense of Jesus’ death, quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy, by saying “Cursed is anyone who is hanged on a tree.” That’s as close as he can get to the cross from his scriptures. Paul reasons that the one who was without sin, Jesus, took on the curse of the Law, atoning for the sins of the many. If this definition isn’t quite satisfying, it’s because Paul is still trying to work out the meaning of the cross and how God used the cross to “set right” all that had gone wrong in the world and to “set free” those who were held captive to the power of Sin in the world. Paul proclaimed that in light of the event of the cross, those who are claimed by God in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, through whose death on the cross God “snatched us out of the grasp of the present evil age,” are now New Creation! (Read Paul’s letter to get the fuller story.)
Even though the cross was a humiliating surprise to Jesus’ followers and remained a mystery, in terms of how God could use an instrument of state-sanctioned torture to set things right in the world, the cross became the central locus (place) for encounter with the Living God. When the world offered death, God offered life. When the world held to old structures of separation, the cross established a new identity for those who were not scandalized by it. Paul says that for anyone who is in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female, for all are made one in Christ.” And Paul says that the cross changes everything in the church as well. “If you follow old social patterns in the church, like saying that former Jews and former Gentiles cannot sit and worship and even eat together, then Christ died for nothing.”
Whatever place the cross holds for you, think on this as we approach Holy Week: the cross of Jesus breaks down the walls that separate us. Yes, it is a scandal (a stumbling block), because no one expected that God could turn humiliation into exaltation. The world has crosses to offer; God has resurrection in store. The key element that turns the cross from an offense to the effective means of grace is….love. Or, as Paul might say it, “Unless your love is genuine and has genuine impact in the world, breaking down old barrier walls, then Christ died for nothing, and the meaning of the cross is null and void.” Paul says, that in light of the cross, “the only thing that matters is faith energized by love.” The cross of Christ makes both faith and love possible…and thereby we have hope. The love God showed the world at the cross changes everything.
