When speaking of contradictions in the Christian faith, we had an interesting discussion on the symbol of the cross in the theology lecture at Morling on 20 Sept. Some people expressed strong disagreement with the lecturer, but anyway, here's what she was talking about:
Symbols of the Cross: what does it mean?
At Jesus’ time: Despair, humiliation, shame.
As a jewellery: might mean or not mean anything about Christianity, depending on the person wearing it.
In hospitals, etc: A sense of rescue.
The church.
Exodus 33: Moses knew they were a bunch of ex-slaves and the only distinguishing mark is God’s presence. His greatest crisis was when Aaron made the golden cow: even his closest co-worker is involved in idol worship. Moses begs to be made certain of God’s presence in his mission, or at least to see and know that God is there. It is a despairing cry for faith. God tells Moses that he shall never see his face, only his back: and that is his only certainty. “You will see me pass by”. God is not showing himself in sight. It comes in the form of the visible back, and requires faith, to see that and say this is God. Nobody deserves God’s mercy, compassion or goodness. Yet God says “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion”. Luther interprets ‘the back parts of God’ to mean the despair and anguish of the absence of God, of being forsaken by God, of the contradictions of life: in short, the cross. Luther taught that God himself confronts us in person and makes his presence near in and through defeat, sorrow, pain, humiliation, anguish, failure, sin and death. The ‘contrary things’ of failure, sin and death constitute the raw material which God transforms into his own self in the human heart. God reveals Himself in this contrary form.
‘A picture held us captive’, wrote the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein as he discussed the remarkable power of symbols over the way in which we think and try to understand the world. Our understanding of the world revolves around ‘pictures’ which seem to hold the key by which the mystery of life may be unlocked. At the centre of the Christian faith lies a picture… dominated by the symbol of the cross. Why is it that at the centre of a faith in a loving God lies a symbol of death and despair – the dreadful picture of a man dying through crucifixion? Yet often times we want to beautify the cross.
How does the cross affect how we do missions today? We are quite cross focused, in hymns, art, architecture, literature etc. At times it can be cliché. What is it that we do in church today that imitates the way of the cross? Baptism? Communion? The cross has lost its original meaning: the one we called saviour died in the most humiliating way, and that was the way he died for our sins. Following the way of Jesus means I too am willing to put myself out there for the same shame/humiliation/despair. The church today is not like this. You can’t have resurrection without the cross. The risen Jesus said to Saul: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” The way of the cross is still the mode of operation. The resurrection is a testing point: We whitewashed the content of our faith, and too much emphasis on realised eschatology, because we are living in places where we are not humiliated/discriminated against because we are Christians. Our experiences do not allow us to grapple with the centre of the reality of the cross: Offering our bodies as living sacrifices. There’s nothing attractive about sacrifice, it’s bloody, smelly, etc. It is a brutal struggle with our will, so that we can surrender all to God. We are getting quite far away from what the cross meant these days. It is faith in the resurrection of Jesus no matter how dismal the current circumstances. We have to find ways to experience the reality of the cross. The most difficult thing the prophets had to do is not just to hear God, but to engage with God’s emotions. If we were interceding on behalf of people who are suffering, we have to do it not just because we know these facts, but we are trying to grapple with God’s emotions for these people.
In Mark 8, Peter confessed when he saw Jesus performing all sorts of miracles. But then when Jesus predicts his death, Peter rebuked Jesus. Jesus then rebuked Peter. Satan is tempting Jesus: You don’t have to go to the cross, just fall down and God will catch you. These are the temptations laid before us in the church in the centuries. Often we are like Peter, we like to see our dreams realised and get angry when they don’t. The centurion’s confession is the true confession. There are people mocking Christians around us but that’s benign compared to what’s happening around the world. What we can do is to pray and ask God to teach us what the reality of the cross means.
On the day of her induction on 25 Sept, our church’s missionary Sunny posted this message:
"Before His crucifixion, the Son of God was stripped naked, beaten until almost unrecognizable, whipped, scorned and mocked, crowned with thorns, and spit on contemptuously. Abused and ridiculed by heartless men, he was treated worse than an animal. Then, nearly unconscious from blood loss, he was forced to drag a cumbersome cross up a hill, was nailed to it, and was left to die the slow, excruciating torture of death by crucifixion. While his lifeblood drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of his pain and challenging his claim to be God. Jesus could have saved himself, but then he could not have saved us! God allowed and endured such ghastly, evil mistreatment, so we could be spared from eternity in hell, and we could share in His glory forever! Jesus gave up everything so we could have everything. He died so we could live forever. That alone is worthy of our continual thanks and praise. Never again should we wonder what we have to be thankful for" (Warren, R. 2002).
And this week, as we approach year Rosh Hashana of year 5777, I remembered the Jerusalem cross I bought a year ago on the day of the Jerusalem March, which really got me thinking about the symbol of the cross.
It is also important to remember that Christian theology ought not be about wrestling with ideas, but about wrestling with the living God. There is every danger that the academic theologian will be trapped in what Karl Barth called an ‘idolatry of concepts’. But the Christian faith is not first and foremost about ideas or concepts, even though it may give rise to them. At its heart lies not an idea or a concept but an event in human history: the living God calling people to faith in him. So central is the cross to Christianity that if God is not revealed in and involved with it, Christian faith must be recognised as a delusion. Here is the living God who makes himself available for our acceptance or rejection in the crucified Christ. The cross of Christ is the point of reference for Christian faith.
References:
McGrath, Alister E. The Mystery of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990.
Miyon Chung, Theology 602 lecture, Morling College.
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