We Proclaim Christ Crucified

I knew a man who was asked by his church to make a rustic cross to put in the church for Holy Week. He was good at things like that, so he agreed. He started thinking about the design and how he should go about making it. After he thought about it for a while, he went walking through the woods looking for pieces of wood that would be the right size. It took a couple of expeditions but eventually he found two pieces of wood that would work. He cut the wood into rough boards and nailed them together. A strange thing happened to him as he was working on this project. He began to feel closer to Jesus. When he picked up the cross to drag it to his truck, it was heavy and he realized how heavy Jesus' cross must have been. He could imagine Jesus dragging that heavy cross along a dusty road and up the hill to Calvary. As he touched the rough wood, he could picture the nails being driven through Jesus' hands and feet, nailing them to the cross. He felt connected with Jesus' suffering in a way that he never had before. He was overwhelmed at the mystery that God was willing to die to save him and that this death somehow led to new life. He couldn't have expressed it in words, but he suddenly sensed the magnitude of God's love for him and the joy of being released from sin and death.

Jesus' death on the cross is at the center of Christianity. Yet it has always been hard even for Christians to explain how it is that Jesus' death has brought us salvation. And for those outside the faith, the idea of a crucified and resurrected God often seems absurd or offensive. As St. Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, the message of the cross is foolishness to some and a stumbling block to others.

In the ancient world, the idea that God could suffer and die was considered utterly inconsistent with God's nature, both for Jews and for Gentiles. God was seen as all powerful, eternal, sovereign.. How could God die? An early critic named Celsus wrote, "What drunken old women, telling stories to lull a small child to sleep, would not be ashamed of muttering such preposterous things?"

Another objection in the early days of Christianity was that God would in any case never be crucified. Crucifixion was considered the most shameful and degrading way to die. It was also the most painful. A Roman citizen could not be crucified-that form of execution was reserved for the most dangerous criminals and rebels against Roman rule. The idea of God being crucified was deeply offensive and for Jews, blasphemous.

All these centuries later, the cross still offends many people-I was one before I became a believer. Nowadays, the objections are a little different-with the scientific age, and the expansion of our concept of the universe, many people think of God as an impersonal force and have a hard time believing in a personal God who cares for us and is intimately involved with us.

Others have trouble with the idea that they need to be saved. It hurts our pride to think that we are sinners who need saving. After all, "I try to be a good person, I pay my taxes and take care of my family and try to help people whenever I can." In the modern world, the concept of sin is considered morbid and destructive.

To answer that objection, I will share an experience from the Lenten book group that we are sharing with the Methodist and Reform churches. We are reading the book, The Year of Living Biblically, written by an agnostic Jew who decides to spend a year following the Bible as literally as possible. The book is very funny at points, but it is also challenging to anyone who takes the Bible seriously, even if they don't try to read it literally. The author tries to follow the 10 commandments as closely as possible, so we set ourselves the task of trying to do the same for a week. It was a humbling experience for most of us. Most people tell so-called white lies frequently, to spare people's feelings or avoid embarrassment or blame. Our whole economic system is based on coveting-that is what the advertising industry is designed to induce. Most people don't keep the Sabbath holy by refraining from work or commerce. Taking the Lord's name in vain is part of everyday conversation. In other words, it's impossible to follow even the 10 most important of God's commandments perfectly.

The concept of sin in Scripture is not intended to induce despair or self-destructive guilt, bu simply to open our eyes to the reality of our human condition.

But returning to the subject of the cross, how do those of us who through God's grace have come to believe that we are saved through Christ give an account of our faith? The church has never settled on a single explanation of exactly how we are saved through Christ's death and resurrection. Many theories have been put forth and most of them can find support in Scripture.

In the early church, a common metaphor was that Christ was the ultimate atoning sacrifice. In the ancient world where sacrifice to God or the gods was part of daily life for Gentiles and Jews, this explanation made sense.

In the middle ages, St. Anselm came up with the satisfaction theory. Sin was a debt owed to God, but the debt was too great for human beings to pay it. Only Jesus was able to pay it, because he was fully divine as well as fully human. This theory made sense in a world of feudal lords and peasants, who were indebted to their lords.

Another theory, also from the middle ages, but with a curiously modern ring to it, is the theory that Jesus is our great example-the way to salvation is to live according to Jesus' teaching and give ourselves for love as he did. This theory is associated with Peter Abelard.

But all of these theories have shortcomings-the idea of sacrifice is appalling to us now, the idea of God as a feudal lord requiring satisfaction is hardly better. The idea of Jesus as our example is fine, but the drawback is that we aren't Jesus and we are doomed to fail.

So how do we articulate our faith in the saving power of the cross? I think St. Paul is trying to get us to see that faith is not a matter of the intellect. "Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?" Nevertheless, I think we can't help trying to make sense of our faith. The theory that makes the most sense to me, at least at this moment, goes back to Gregory of Nazianzus who lived in the 4th century.

By entering fully into the human experience, including the experience of everything we fear most, sin, suffering and death, Jesus redeemed that experience. Jesus' passion reveals the dark side of the human condition. The cruelty and injustice of Jesus death shows what human beings are capable of, his horrendous suffering is a microcosm of human suffering everywhere, and his death is as tragic as any of our deaths. By sharing fully in the human experience, Jesus reveals the depths of God's love for us. By raising Jesus from the dead, God reveals that all our experiences will be redeemed through love. Our sins are forgiven, our suffering is redeemed and our deaths will lead to new life. "God's foolishness is wiser than our wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."

But even as I try to articulate my faith, I recognize that words are inadequate to describe a paradox and a mystery. What God ultimately wants from us is trust. Can we trust that we are connected to Christ in a profound way? Can we trust that our sins are forgiven and our wounds healed? Can we trust that we are raised to new life with Christ?

Wherever you are in this journey of faith, you are not alone. People have always struggled with a crucified savior. Sometimes I can't look at the cross-I just want to run away like Jesus' disciples did when he was arrested. But St. Paul's message is that it's not something that we can ultimately figure out. We can just live with it like the man who built the cross. We can let it change us. We can look all around us in the community of the faithful, and see people whose lives have been transformed by Christ. I believe if we just sit with the mystery, we will experience release from bondage and the peace and power of Christ.