The Symbols of Holy
Week: The Cross
Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson,
Pastor
April 14, 2017
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the
meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our
strength and our redeemer. Amen.
This week, in our Holy Week services beginning
last Sunday, I have focused in my meditations on the symbols of Holy Week. So
far I have talked about the symbol of the donkey on which Jesus rode into
Jerusalem and about the symbol of the table of the Last Supper. This evening we
come to Good Friday, and the central symbol of Good Friday is, of course, the cross
on which Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, died. Like the other symbols of
Holy Week the cross is, on the most basic level, a physical object. It is a
most terrible and fearful physical object. It was an object the Romans used to
execute people. They used it as their form of execution especially for
political prisoners, for people they feared could stir up the masses against
them. They used it in very visible, public places. Crucifixion is a terrible,
horrible way to die, and when the Romans executed someone they wanted everyone
else to see the condemned person not only dying but suffering horribly as he
died. They wanted everyone to see so that they would think twice about daring
to defy Roman power. As a physical object the cross is an instrument of
terrorism every bit as horrible as a bomb exploded in a public market place. On
that level of meaning the cross is an abomination, a crime against humanity. On
that level of meaning we should despise the cross, we should hide the cross, we
should have nothing to do with the cross.
But we don’t. We don’t despise it. We don’t hide
it. We put it on top of our church buildings. We put at the front of our
worship spaces. We wear it around our necks, just like I’m doing right now. So
if the cross is such a horrible thing—and it is—then why do we cling to it the
way we do? Why has it become the central symbol of the Christian faith? Are we
sadists? Are we delighting in suffering and death? Of course not. The cross is
so central to us because like the other symbols of Holy Week the cross is for
us Christians so much more than a mere physical object. It is a symbol. As a
symbol it has another level of meaning beyond its meaning as a mere physical
object. It has a much deeper level of meaning. As a symbol it points beyond
itself to profound truth. As a symbol it connects us with profound truth. It
connects us with a truth about God and a truth about Jesus as the Christ. So if
we are to understand the cross as the central symbol of Good Friday, indeed, as
the central symbol of the Christian faith, and not merely as the instrument of
execution that the Romans used to kill Jesus, we have to ask: What is the
profound spiritual truth to which the cross of Christ points, what is the truth
with which the cross seeks to connect us?
Christians have given different answers to that
question over the years. The most common answer that the Christian church has
given to that question, at least since the High Middle Ages, has been that the
cross points us to the truth that Jesus suffered and died as an innocent victim
to pay the price for human sin that had to be paid before God could or would
forgive our sin. This evening, however, I want to suggest a different truth to
which I believe the cross of Christ points that, for me and for many people
today, speaks loudly and clearly of the love and grace of God in a way that
touches my heart and stirs my soul. Perhaps it will touch your heart and stir
your soul as well.
To get at that truth we start with an
understanding of just who is it that is being tortured and killed on the cross.
He is Jesus of course, and for us Christians that means a whole lot. It means
that the man on the cross is fully human, yet it also means that he is at the
same time fully divine. He is the Son of God Incarnate, the Word of God made
flesh. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He is God in human form suffering and dying
on the cross. During his life as Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus taught us with
his words and showed us with his life who God is for us, how God relates to us
human beings. In his life he taught and lived God’s compassion and God’ grace.
Now we come to his death. What does seeing him even on the cross as Emmanuel,
as God with us, tell us about the meaning of his death, the meaning of his
cross?
I believe that seeing Jesus as Emmanuel, God
with us, even on the cross tells us how God relates to us not only in the good
times of life but also, and much more importantly, in the bad times. Jesus,
Emmanuel, on the cross shows us that God does not abandon us in the bad times.
God does not scorn our suffering and our death. God is not remote and removed
from our suffering and our death. Rather, God is with us even in the worst that
life can hand us. In Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, on the cross, God in
God’s own person enters into the worst that life can hand a human being. God
experiences in God’s own person suffering, and even more.
There is a great paradox in seeing Jesus as God
with us even on the cross. In Jesus on the cross God experiences everything
that a human being can experience in the worst of times. On the cross Jesus
cries “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In that cry God is
paradoxically experiencing being abandoned by God. God enters into the human
experience of being abandoned by God. God demonstrates the seemingly
impossible, that God is with us even in our feeling of God abandoning us. In
Jesus on the cross God does not observe our feeling of aloneness, our feeling
even of abandonment, from afar. Rather, God enters into those feelings and
shows us that God is with us even there.
And there is an even greater paradox in Jesus on
the cross. On the cross Jesus dies. On the cross Emmanuel, God with us, dies.
On the cross of Jesus God experiences death. God dies on the cross. That’s a
shocking statement I know, and it is one the Christian tradition has been very
creative in finding ways to avoid. Yet Jesus Christ is precisely God with us,
and Jesus Christ dies on the cross. In the death of Jesus on the cross God
enters into and experiences human death. In the death of Jesus on the cross God
shows us in the clearest possible way that God is not absent from human death,
that God does not scorn or reject or judge human death. Rather God enters into
human death and is present in it, is present with us even as we die, never
truly forsaking us, never truly abandoning us.
The Christian church has long taught that the
death of Jesus on the cross functions as an sacrificial atonement for human
sin. Yet for me, and for a lot of Christians today, the cross of Christ speaks less
of atonement or sacrifice and more of the unfailing presence and grace of God
in everything that comes our way in life, up to and including suffering and
death. The cross then is about us and about how God relates to us. God doesn’t
prevent the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, and God doesn’t prevent
suffering and death in our lives or the lives of our loved ones either. Rather,
in the cross of Jesus we see demonstrated in fullest measure God’s abiding and
sustaining presence with us in suffering and death. We see God with us even as
Emmanuel suffers and dies.
Let me tell a personal story that some of you
have heard before that, I think illustrates the point. In May, 2007, my twin
brother suffered a severe stroke. Somewhat to our surprise he survived it, but
he was (and is) in bad shape. I flew to Tucson, Arizona, where he lived at the
time. I went to the hospital he was in. It was a Catholic hospital. In the ICU
unit that my brother was in there was a family room. I spent a lot of time in
that family room grieving, hurting, being deeply concerned about what my
brother’s life would be like from then on. Because it was a Catholic hospital,
on the wall of the family room hung a crucifix. A crucifix is a cross that
isn’t empty. It has the body of Jesus on it. As I looked up at that crucifix on
the wall I thought: Oh yeah. That’s right. You get it. You’ve been where my
brother is and where I am, and worse. And that made a big difference in my
life. In seeing Jesus on that cross I know that God had abandoned neither my
brother nor me no matter what was happening in our lives. I knew that God was
with us and would never leave us. Knowing that didn’t make the grief, pain, and
fear go away, but it made it possible for me to bear them and not love heart.
Not love my faith. Seeing Jesus on the cross made all the difference for me in
those terrible days.
That, for me anyway, is the Good News of Good
Friday, of the cross of Christ, and it is very good news indeed. It means that
we can face and handle whatever life throws at us or our loved ones. It means
that we can face and handle those things because in the cross of Christ we see
God’s unshakable solidarity with us no matter what. We know that wherever we
are, God has been there too, and worse. God is there too, and worse. That is
the good news of Good Friday. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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