For the Salvation of Souls:
A Preacher's Contribution

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The Feast of the exaltation of the cross! Think about it! What a strange combination of terms! The cross—that violent symbol of our pride, our selfishness, and of our hatred for our fellows—that instrument of state terrorism and torture—and yet also a powerful Christian symbol of the glory that God has in store for us in the resurrection. How can we make sense of this crazy juxtaposition, this flagrant paradox?

In the New Testament itself we see various and even extreme interpretations of the meaning of the cross. In the Gospel of Mark, for example, the death of Jesus is depicted in all of its stark terror: we see the Lord expressing words of abandonment by his father, and then uttering a loud, dreadful cry as he dies. Crucifixion, indeed, was the most barbaric and horrific  form of death known in the ancient world, painfully long and utterly humiliating; it was considered by devout Jews to be the curse of God on him who was crucified, and Roman citizens were not allowed to be crucified at all, so repulsive was this death in civilized eyes. Mark portrays the death of Jesus in all of its naked terror; there is no hint of the glorious resurrection that will soon follow.

What a different perspective the Gospel of John has on the death of Jesus! Rather than depicting a man at the appalling extremes of human suffering, John portrays Jesus as standing regally above his suffering in his quiet concern for his mother and his beloved disciple, and when his hour has finally come, John depicts Jesus as calmly bowing his head when he was ready to die, thus returning his spirit to his Father of his own free will. The very glory of the Father is actually seen in this death; the moment of exaltation actually begins on the cross for John, when Jesus is lifted up to the Father.

How can the cross be understood in such remarkably different ways? The varying Gospel interpretations probably stem from the fact that the gospel of Mark was written many years before the gospel of John; Mark was still very close in time to the terrible memory of the crucifixion, and the starkness of his portrayal reflects this. St. John, on the other hand, had many more years to reflect upon the ultimate meaning of the coss, and its relation to Jesus' exaltation.

And so at first in the early church the crucifixion was probably experienced as something simply loathsome, as a great inexplicable calamity that befell Jesus. It was at first seen as something wholly negative, the result of the sinful pride of human beings, but something which the Father in his loving goodness had overturned in the resurrection. And there is much truth here: The crucifixion of Jesus was a horribly evil thing perpetrated by sinful human beings, it was not the will of God—God does not crucify those whom he loves, God did not want Jesus to suffer. Our redemption certainly did not result because Christ was made to suffer by his Father, but because of how deeply Christ loved his father as he accepted the death that resulted from his life of loving service for us in a sinful world.

As the Church reflected on this event, however, it realized that even the cross itself must have been part of the providence of God as He foresaw the rejection of Jesus by his own, and determined to bring their salvation out of it in a remarkable way. The early Christians understood that God had determined to bring new life out of the seeming dead end of the cross. And so St. John understood that the trusting acceptance of his horrible death by Jesus was itself the beginning of new life, was a moment in the redemption and glorification that would culminate in the resurrection.

Both perspectives are true, and the feast of the exaltation of the cross points to this paradoxical truth: the most terrible event imaginable became the vehicle of our salvation. The cross must be both hated and venerated; hated because of the horrible human suffering involved, and hated because of the depths of human cruelty that it expressed. But it must also be venerated, venerated because of the love and obedience of Jesus for his Father which he  manifested on the cross, and venerated because of the Father's gracious response to that love.

And both perspectives on the cross must be maintained in our own lives. On the one hand, we should not seekafter suffering, for suffering is never a good thing in itself, never directly the object of God's will for us. God does not want us to suffer, any more than we wanted his son to suffer; ours is a God of the living, not of the dead, and it is our responsibility to relieve the suffering of others wherever and however we can. On the other hand, we should always seek, as did Jesus, after that which is good, after a life of care and compassion, of mercy and loving service for others, and then be willing to accept, in love and in obedience, the suffering that doing this will inevitably bring us in the present conditions of this world. We must not seek suffering, but we must not run away from it either, especially when it is the outcome of our discipleship, of our attempt to live at least in some little way as Christ lived. Our salvation was not caused by the murder of an innocent man 2000 years ago—God did not punish Jesus in our place, as some have said (that's blasphemy)—it was rather caused by the mutual love of the Father and Jesus, stronger than even death, that was played out in that situation of suffering which resulted from Jesus' life of care and compassion, of mercy and loving service in a sinful world. And so it must be played out in ours as well, as we seek to be and to do good in a world that so often rewards such efforts with suffering. The way of the master is the way of his disciples as well, but it is a way that the Father will glorify.

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