The Crucifix

Bread and Wine Reading: "The Crucifix", Thomas Howard

Scripture Reading: Luke 23: 32-35
Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’

“And the people stood by…” We tend to do that. We stand by, not knowing what to do, not knowing if we should get involved, not wanting to get our hands dirty. We just wait…wait for Easter morning when the whole ugly thing will be more palatable at which to look. But Thomas Howard reminds us that “we don’t just have an empty cross with the work finished and done…that which is thus ‘finished’ remains present in actual time…Sin, sorrow, and suffering, and death itself, were indeed taken away at the Cross, but we mortals must enter into the depths of this mystery in actual experience.” We are called not to merely worship the cross, but to enter its mystery, to be part of its “actual experience.”

This is the most difficult for us Protestant Christians, those of us who have chosen to spend the whole of our church year bowing before the “empty Cross”, the depiction of Christ’s Resurrection and the promise of our own salvation. And while I’m not willing to trade the large gleaming empty cross at the front of my own sanctuary and permanently replace it with a Crucifix, I think that we do miss part of what the Cross means if we choose to never enter the pain and the suffering that is Christ’s. In fact, Howard asks, “Where, suddenly, is the theology that teaches that because the Savior did it all, we thereby are reduced to the status of inert bystanders?” “And the people stood by…”—there it is again—that uncomfortable claim that we stand by and let Christ suffer, that we stand by and wait for Christ to finish up this whole messy ordeal, hand us a lily and a pretty bonnet, and invite us to joyfully sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and go on about our business.

The season of Lent, though, is about entering the experience of the Cross—the whole experience. Because how can one understand the joy of Resurrection without experiencing the pain and suffering and even the death of Crucifixion? The two cannot be separated.

There are many people nowadays that describe themselves as “spiritual”, depicting it as something a step above “religious.” (Personally, I’m not convinced that the two can be effectively separated.) But there are those who would claim to be “spiritual” and not “religious”. Being spiritual goes beyond worshipping; it is a way of connecting one’s life with God. But the Cross is about going further. We Christians are not called to be merely spiritual; we are called to be incarnational. We are called to enter and bear all that is Christ—the pain, the suffering, the death, and, just when we think “it is finished”, the joy of rising to eternal life, to an eternity of oneness with God. If we are to truly understand what that means, we must, then, embrace the entirety of the message of the Cross. And so, perhaps, if only for awhile (maybe 40 days or so!), we should spend this Season of Lent truly looking at the “pre-Easter” experience of the Cross. You will be amazed what that Easter morning Cross, gleaming in the sunlight of a newly created day, looks like if you understand how God created it, if you have experienced all that is God.

Discussion Questions:
1.) How uncomfortable are you with the Crucifix, with the notion of the “unempty” Cross?
2.) In what ways do you allow yourself to be a bystander to the whole Christ experience?
3.) What, for you, does it mean to be incarnational?

So go forth toward the Cross and experience all there is of God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli