There was a lot of bloody, sad talk at church this morning, as well there should be in the lead-up to Easter. In Sunday School, we had to leaven it with jokes. In the service, not so much. It's hard to think about what happened on the cross, especially for people who strive to live in joy and those who want to make Christianity appealing to all. When I think of all the other ways it could have gone, I can feel a scowl forming on my face. If God can do anything, why did he have to make redemption so painful?
I'm not making any attempt to answer that question, but I at least understand that he did choose that, and because he did, we can't ignore the pain and violence of "Good" Friday. Facing it comes in different forms for everyone, and another thing I'm not doing here is prescribing a method of contemplating the cross. You'll find yours when it's time.
There's a Taize song that goes "Crucem tuam adoramus, Domine. Resurrectionem tuam laudamus, Domine." It means something like, "We adore your cross, Lord. We praise your resurrection, Lord." The song is in a minor key and has some hauntingly beautiful harmonies. It's one of my favorites from Taize, actually. Considering the lyrics reminds me that we don't just adore Christ's teachings or pacifism or care for the lowly. We don't just adore him for creating the Church and giving us Holy Communion or for any other reason. We adore His cross and His resurrection, first and foremost, and we can't praise one without the other. Focus only on the cross, and you're a Friday person who sees a lackluster and doomed world. Focus only on the resurrection, and you might become blind to all the perils and evils of the world. But if you can hold the two complementary truths in your mind and heart, you have a balanced and (to the extent that I am qualified to declare this) accurate idea of what the Christian faith is about. Without Christ's death, the resurrection is not a resurrection at all. Without the resurrection, Christ would be just another dead guy. As unpleasant as it usually is, we have to honor the brutality of the cross at the same time as we rejoice in its life-giving power.
2 comments:
Rachel, as you probably know, you're not the only person who struggles with the idea of violence that is redemptive. Walter Wink has written an interesting article on this idea. It's here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/cpt/article_060823wink.shtml.
It has been suggested and you may have already heard that the reason the Cross was the method was because God knew everybody suffers and has pain. Everybody has some defeat and disappointment in life. All of us know death. Not all of us know happiness, not all of us know sucess, but all of us can identify with suffering and death. Who knows if that was in God's mind, but it helped the thinking of some.
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