Friday, February 5, 2010

Do You Think Jesus Would Like All the Crosses?"

The title of this post is taken from a question I was recently asked on an atheist forum I visit occassionally. My answer to the question was simply "yes". One poster responded wanting to hear further explanation and commenting that my belief was a bit presumptious. I offer further explanation here.

In fact, I think it is the crucifix, with the corpus hung upon it which is the most potent symbol. 'The man known as Jesus' spoke repeatedly of crosses.

Matthew 16:24 'Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me...'' Then He proceeded to set the example by doing exactly that. When taunted by bystanders to save himself and to come down from the cross, He desn't. He remains and fulfills His mission.

St Paul in his letter to the Romans speaks of the Cross as a a scandal to the Jews and a stumbling block to the Greeks, yet he continues to preach '...Jesus Christ and Him crucified...'

For Christians, specifically for Catholic Christians, one of the great lessons of the Cross is that suffering has a real value. Suffering came into the world through an act of the will of Man via the Fall, for some reason that suffering cannot be alleviated, but must be endured. Somehow, suffering figures into God's plan of salvation and is so central to salvation history that even God is not above suffering. Like Christ, we do not seek suffering, but when it is necessary, when it is unavoidable, we accept it willingly. Like St Paul, we unite our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ; hence that uniquely Catholic concept taught to Catholics by their mothers to 'offer it up'.

In the heaveny liturgy revealed to St John in the book of Revelation it is the sacrificed Lamb who sits upon the throne. It is the crucified Christ who reigns as King."

It is the Cross of Christ, then, whic becomes for Christians the central point of history, the focal point of all that has transpired and all that is to come. We view the world through the lens of the Passion, but not just the Passion, since the Passion of Christ is inextricaly linked to His Resurrection. It is through the suffering of the Cross that the hope of the Ressurection, that promise of Christ to make all things new, is realized. There, at the Cross, the "scandal" and the "stumbling block" become our hope.

And, as Pope Benedict XVI tells us, "He who has hope lives differently."

No comments: