Thoughts on the Cross

My Good Friday has included a couple of reminders about the cross of Christ as a lens through which to view the world and myself as a part of it. I’ve always thought of the cross in terms of what it accomplished, what it makes possible, what it’s useful for. The cross was worth reflecting on, so I thought, because it was the means by which God made something really good possible. Sure it was a little gruesome but the point is what came next, the point was the ’salvation’ that the cross produced. Lately I’ve been wondering if I’m missing something important. I’ve been wondering whether the cross might primarily be a revelation, a revelation of who God is and (significantly) of who we are.

The fact of Good Fridy is that, when confronted with the kind of life Jesus demonstrated, our response was to angrily get rid of it, to declare our allegiance even to Caesar, rather than to embrace it. The cross is a permanent and sobering reminder of the response that God’s kind of love usually produces. We don’t like it. I don’t like it. But why not?

I’m just starting to think about this question. This Good Friday has been one where I’ve been introduced to the possibility that the cross is the clue, the key, the answer to many of the questions that plague us. The cross reveals the radical depth of God’s love as well as the radical resistance that we have toward that love. I find myself wondering about the irony of that statement.