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Beloved,
Thinking ahead to Easter, I’ve been meditating on both the cross and resurrection. If there is a popular symbol in Christian circles, it is the cross. We see it gold upon each other’s necks; in cross tattoos; almost every church has one somewhere. And yet if there is an unpopular church holiday, it is “Good” Friday.
As an eight-year-old I asked my theologian father about the term “good” applied to a day of suffering and death. He smiled gently and said simply: “Good question. Many other people have asked the same question.” A more orthodox response might have been to tell me that this death was redemptive—that it had a divine sacrificial purpose.
I like my father’s gentle affirmation and respect for the child’s pain at one good person’s suffering better than blithe orthodoxy. Still, we cannot skip over Good Friday, leaping from a festive Palm Sunday procession to joyful halleluias, as though nothing happened between. Jesus of Nazareth was hanged on a Roman tree of death. And died there. How do we make sense of something so terrible?
I have come to the conviction that the cross represents a very sad human reality: those who speak the truth in love-- speak it to power-- must be prepared for a terrible cost. Those who challenge the basis of abusive systems in the name of Love will inevitably provoke anger and toxic fear on the part of those whose supremacy is threatened.
A second powerful meaning of the cross for me is that in the very human form of the Christ, God is in solidarity with all those who have suffered in the past, and those who continue to suffer today.
Wherever children are killed, wherever the rights of workers are trampled, Christ is still crucified! Wherever gender is used as a basis to abuse power or engage in subjugation, wherever one people dominates and occupies another’s lands,Christ is still crucified. Wherever the myth of racial supremacy allows for the deprivation of human rights and dignity, Christ is still crucified.
The cross today takes many forms: the AR-15 and the military equivalents; the bulldozer used to demolish ancestral homes; the drone attack that “accidentally” kills innocents; violence aimed at trans people; the lethal injection and the lynching tree and the system of violent police repression that takes lives and that imprisons people of color at the drop of a hat; imprisons and deports refugees without due process, sometimes to their deaths.
But if such things are what the cross means, Christ’s resurrection means something greater still. Death’s power does not have the last word. The dire price of the struggle for human dignity, rights and peace is worth it. Our belief in Resurrection says that truth has power to give life even amid death; justice will prevail in the end; Love will have its way.
As we approach Easter, may we be strengthened for lives of faith rooted in resurrection while acknowledging the reality of human suffering. For we are convinced there is One who is with us in the moments of greatest trial. There is a day coming of promise and release for all captive humanity.
Peace,
Peter
Thinking ahead to Easter, I’ve been meditating on both the cross and resurrection. If there is a popular symbol in Christian circles, it is the cross. We see it gold upon each other’s necks; in cross tattoos; almost every church has one somewhere. And yet if there is an unpopular church holiday, it is “Good” Friday.
As an eight-year-old I asked my theologian father about the term “good” applied to a day of suffering and death. He smiled gently and said simply: “Good question. Many other people have asked the same question.” A more orthodox response might have been to tell me that this death was redemptive—that it had a divine sacrificial purpose.
I like my father’s gentle affirmation and respect for the child’s pain at one good person’s suffering better than blithe orthodoxy. Still, we cannot skip over Good Friday, leaping from a festive Palm Sunday procession to joyful halleluias, as though nothing happened between. Jesus of Nazareth was hanged on a Roman tree of death. And died there. How do we make sense of something so terrible?
I have come to the conviction that the cross represents a very sad human reality: those who speak the truth in love-- speak it to power-- must be prepared for a terrible cost. Those who challenge the basis of abusive systems in the name of Love will inevitably provoke anger and toxic fear on the part of those whose supremacy is threatened.
A second powerful meaning of the cross for me is that in the very human form of the Christ, God is in solidarity with all those who have suffered in the past, and those who continue to suffer today.
Wherever children are killed, wherever the rights of workers are trampled, Christ is still crucified! Wherever gender is used as a basis to abuse power or engage in subjugation, wherever one people dominates and occupies another’s lands,Christ is still crucified. Wherever the myth of racial supremacy allows for the deprivation of human rights and dignity, Christ is still crucified.
The cross today takes many forms: the AR-15 and the military equivalents; the bulldozer used to demolish ancestral homes; the drone attack that “accidentally” kills innocents; violence aimed at trans people; the lethal injection and the lynching tree and the system of violent police repression that takes lives and that imprisons people of color at the drop of a hat; imprisons and deports refugees without due process, sometimes to their deaths.
But if such things are what the cross means, Christ’s resurrection means something greater still. Death’s power does not have the last word. The dire price of the struggle for human dignity, rights and peace is worth it. Our belief in Resurrection says that truth has power to give life even amid death; justice will prevail in the end; Love will have its way.
As we approach Easter, may we be strengthened for lives of faith rooted in resurrection while acknowledging the reality of human suffering. For we are convinced there is One who is with us in the moments of greatest trial. There is a day coming of promise and release for all captive humanity.
Peace,
Peter