Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Yet we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our sins. Upon him was the chastisement that brings us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
- Isaiah 53.4-5
It’s a gracious thing in God’s sight, if you endure while you suffer for the sake of the good. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you follow in his footsteps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was insulted, he returned no insult. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to the One who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
- 1 Peter 2.20-24
One of the most peculiar aspects of Jesus' kingdom proclamation was his claim that God was fulfilling his ancient promises through Jesus’ own person and work. God was rescuing Israel, judging evil, and establishing his reign of justice and peace through Jesus.
More specifically, the New Testament portrays Jesus' obedience unto death on the cross as the ultimate revelation of the reign of God.
In the words of John Howard Yoder, "The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come" (The Politics of Jesus, 51).
The cross of Jesus is the crux – the central, focal, decisive – point of history.
Thus, history is "from first to last, and at every point in between, cruciform, the form of the cross. Not any cross, but this cross; yet this cross is every cross. At a particular point in time, on a certain Friday afternoon on a dung heap outside the gates of Jerusalem, it is said of all time, 'It is finished.' Yet it is not over. Now time, reformed because cross-formed, begins anew. The past and the future and this little in-between point we call the present are all in order. What happened at the cross point is what the first Adam was supposed to have done in the beginning. This is the Omega point, the end and the destiny of the love that was to give birth to love. It took the one who is both Alpha and Omega to restore life to love aborted" (John Richard Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, 190-91).
Jesus didn't simply come to set a good example for humanity, or to save us from our individual sins so that we can go to heaven when we die. Jesus came as Israel’s Messianic King and as the world's Great Savior, in order to set into motion a new creation. Through Jesus' person and work, God has created a new humanity – a community of renewed, forgiven children of God, commissioned with the task of new creation. As Jesus' followers, we are called to lead a radically new kind of life.
Only in this sense can we understand Jesus' death as exemplary. It functions as our consistent, universal example of the truly human way. This is why Jesus implores us to "Pick up our crosses and follow him!"
But what is this "cross" that we are called to carry?
Again, the words of Yoder are instructive: "The believer’s cross must be, like his Lord’s, the price of social nonconformity. It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of a path freely chosen after counting the cost. It is not…an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to Come" (The Politics of Jesus, 96).
The implications of this for Christ's church are astounding!
As we bear our crosses we are found to be "in Christ" and are called to the task of Christ-image-formation. Reckoning ourselves as being "dead to sin and alive in Jesus Christ," we participate with God's community of faith in God's work to bring about transformation in the world.
In this work of transformation we refuse the way of violence as an instrument of God's will; we offer welcome to strangers; we offer God's love and forgiveness to those who do evil; we announce the good news to the poor; we proclaim release to those who are captive; we set at liberty those who are oppressed; and we embody the Lord's Jubilee.
To bear the cross of Jesus is to become part of an alternative, God-ordained social and political reality in the world – one that threatens the existing order of things, as we point to the victory of God in Jesus Christ.
To bear the cross of Jesus is to become the flesh and blood embodiment of God's peaceable kingdom, even as we groan inwardly for the fullness of God's kingdom come and for our future share in the glory of Christ's resurrection.
2 comments:
"The cross of Jesus is the crux – the central, focal, decisive – point of history."
2009 years ago, on this day, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on the cross. Western civilizations have been keen to mark this on their calender; after all, we divide history into two halves, being before the death on the cross and after it (B.C. and A.D.).
Why the notion of death on the cross is so important are twofold. The first is the notion that humans killed god's greatest gift, the second being that upon doing this the greatest miracle happened: Forgiveness was given, and eternal life was granted to all that would ask for it. Truly, such a thing is justified in being the definitive point in history!
"What happened at the cross point is what the first Adam was supposed to have done in the beginning"
This is is perhaps both interesting and worrisome, and I will try to keep this simple, so as not to disturb anyone's Good Friday. However, by asserting this we hit a major dilemma. We notice that Adam was punished for eating from the fruit of the tree- the tree of knowledge. This tree is one that represents humanity's wrinkle; it symbolizes the loss of innocence and the fall of man. Yet, this very act includes something more. Taking from the fruit of knowledge also granted humanity reason, the same reason that we aim to attain in our schools and universities.
This brings us to the notion that the gifts brought through Jesus' death on the cross can only granted to those who exhibit faith- faith in Jesus, and faith in the resurrection. We have just established that this must wholly and utterly be opposed to reason, the loss of innocence and the fall of man. If this is the case, we see that our problem arises.
Universities, politics, legal thought; these are all based on reason, not scripture or the like. The age of enlightenment was one that defined our society, where reason would become opposed to faith, and become the new light to guide our people. If reason is opposed to faith, and faith is required for definition of the cross, where can we westerners stand? Do we somehow try to reconcile the two? Do we try to trade one for the other? What can we do about this; it seems that Christians in a western civilization are a contradiction.
What can we do to solve this dilemma? Is a reconciliation project in order?
Regardless, pray for a solution and an answer should come, in due time, and please everyone, enjoy your Easter weekend :).
But 'reason' - this worldly idea that everything must make sense using earthly knowledge and scientific proof - cannot incorporate the supernatural, so it seems to leave it out entirely, or put it on a different level.
God is not limited to our world, He's not even limited to our universe. He's in an entirely different realm. To quantify him through earthy measures would shrink His glory into our insignificant minds.
And MY God is bigger than that.
Otherwise He wouldn't be worth believing. You cannot reason my God into a box.
Humans love to reason because it means we are in control. Because of our human desire for proof and reason, faith does not come naturally...and yet, when we give up our human control and trust God in faith, big things happen: God proves Himself.
Just read Hebrews 11. One of the notes in my Bible says that Faith is not a blind leap against known facts; faith is a confident action based on what God has revealed about His character, seeking to do His will in all things.
My prayer for whoever reads this is Ephesians 1...especially verse 17. Our God is amazing. Beyond description.
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