The Cross: Not a Way Out, but a Way Through

A few years ago I stopped preaching on Palm Sunday. I did so because I found it hard to get up into the pulpit, as I do today, and preach after having heard the full account of the suffering of Christ on the cross. It was a move not so much to shirk my duties as a preacher -- avoid the heavy lifting of interpreting a challenging biblical passage -- rather for me it was an acknowledgement of not knowing where to start – or how to start? I just didn’t want to speak. To offer more words. I wanted to sit in silence for a while and wonder.

Wonder about how events had gotten so out of control that it led to the tragic and violent end of the life of one who had preached peace and compassion, and forgiveness. Wonder about what I would have done if I had been in the position of Jesus’ followers. Would I have come forward in a time of crisis or melted into the background?

Of all of the great symbols and events that gave rise to the Christian faith -- the birth of Christ, his baptism and ministry of healing and miracles -- the cross and the crucifixion is not something that that can be easily explained away or rationalized or justified. It remains a galling, tragic, ironic end to the beginning of a new way of understanding God’s love for this world.

Remember how we began this season of Lent some six weeks ago with the cross. Tracing the sign of the cross on our foreheads with ashes to remind us that we are alive and come from the earth and that one day we will return to the earth and to the one who formed us.

For the lives of early Christians who found themselves cut off from their former places of worship in the synagogues and who were martyred for their belief in Christ -- Stephen the first, Peter and Paul to follow, and the list goes on -- the cross was not a piece of art to hang on a wall or around one’s neck as a sign of devotion, it was their lives. They would hear and see in the sufferings of Jesus on the cross a snapshot of their own experience. They knew first hand betrayal, trials, pain, loneliness, and many of their lives came to an early end. They saw in their struggles, their losses, their fears, their torments a Son of God, a Messiah, who had experienced what they knew.

For us today who are not persecuted for our faith, who live in a post-modern age, how do we see and experience the central event of today’s liturgy: the suffering and death of Christ?

The people who witnessed what happened to Jesus on the cross had within their tradition the seed of making sense of what it means to live and carry on when it seems like the world has pulled the rug out from under our lives. And so do we. The prophet Isaiah gives the people a way not to avoid the suffering that comes with this world – but more importantly shows them a way through. Not a way out, but a way through.

From Isaiah 50 we hear: 5: I did not turn backward. 6: I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. 7: The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; 8: he who vindicates me is near.

What do we learn? What do we hear? In our times of trials, when our minds and instinct tell us to turn around or away, scripture tells us to stand firm. Our culture says that pain can be treated and numbed; downplay bad news and troubling signs on the horizon. I am reminded of a cartoon from the New Yorker Magazine that has two men walking down a city street when one turns to other and says, “I’m so glad to be back in denial.”

As believers we can not side-step the difficult parts. We can’t walk around the cross to get to the good part of the resurrection. We all, each one of us, have to pass through. There is no detour around. We have to face what we have to face. Say what we need to say. Pain, loss, trial, death, they are as much a part of living as birth, celebration, and joy.

In the week ahead, we are invited to build up our defenses and store up strength that we all need. The week we call Holy is an invitation for us to find times of silence, to wonder about those things we may have been avoiding, but with God’s help, can face and overcome. When all seems lost, if and when we are ever ready to give up on ourselves, those we love, the whole world in general, or give up on God, we are reminded that there is another way.

With God as our help, we can grow stronger, come to love and accept who we are as God has created us, learn to love and care for the world around us and give of ourselves freely. The cross shows us that nothing can ever overcome or defeat us.