April 9 2004
Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 + Hebrews 4:14-16: 5:7-9 + John 18:1-19:42
“We adore you O Christ and we praise you, for by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.” We have said it over and over and over again. That the world is in need of redemption is painfully clear; and the history of human efforts in that regard is a history of failure. The eventual intervention of God is our best hope, and the cross we so respectfully and solemnly honor and venerate today is the symbol of that hope. Traditional explanations of the cross that speak of “ransom” “sacrifice” or “fulfillment of the Father’s Will” are subject to great misunderstanding that either lead to scandal or reduce the cross to insignificance. To think that the Father demanded the horrible death of His son is scandalous. No parent asks their child’s death before being willing to fix something that is broken, even if it is the whole universe. That is a false image of God that has led too many to reject our faith. God asks for Love and Obedience, not a ugly and violent death. Jesus was killed because he refused to stop loving. He refused to stop his challenge to a world’s way of doing things.
The focus of Christian spirituality is the development of living, loving, dynamic relationship with God. As with every relationship that is living and loving, there is always “sacrifice” to be made, to be given, to be offered for the other. That sacrifice expresses itself in good works that strengthen the relationship. The result of that sacrifice of love is “consolation”, but that is not its goal. The word “sacri/ficare” means “to make holy.” We usually do that by setting something aside, taking it out of use for the common or the ordinary, and holding it exclusively for God. The consequence of that sacrifice is to “give it up”. Our Christian tradition recognizes that to become holy somehow involves giving something up. The cross was Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. It was the expression of his love, the ultimate self-gift. The only way he could have avoided that death would have been to renounce the love that motivated his life and his work. He refused to stop loving.
Peter suggested once that there might have been an easier way to accomplish that mission of redemption without suffering, and it must have been a very tempting proposal. But Jesus recognized that lie and rejected it. He called it “human reasoning” and contrasted it with “divine wisdom.” His love conquers evil. His refusal to limit his love, his act of sacrifice, leads directly to the cross. It is a love free of selfishness and any hint of self-centeredness. The cross redeems the world because it is the sign of that love, and that kind of love is the only love that can redeem. It is the only kind of love that can reconcile. It is the only kind of love that can bring peace. This is the “peace” that Christ brings to the world.
The peace of Christ is not what the world imagines peace to be. Jesus warns us about that when he says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth;
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” The world thinks of peace as confirming the status-quo, of stopping challenges, of leaving things as they are, or removing conflict. Jesus did not come to leave things as they are. His mission was to rearrange things, and so the peace for which we pray, the peace that comes from union with God includes profound changes in our lives and in this world.
Too often the “peace” we want is a subtle form of selfishness or hedonism. Not getting that “right” is why the cross so easily turns into a piece of jewelry. The cross we venerate this day is neither gold nor silver. It is wood: the real thing that speaks of the sacrifice of love, suffering, and death. It speaks to us of real, honest, perfect love, the kind of love we can only find in God and hope to imitate. This is a love totally free of self-concern a love that never considers one’s own good. Jesus is that love made flesh. His entire life was an actualization of that selfless love. He loved the world the way the Father loved the world, and nothing could stop him from loving, not even the loss of peace and tranquility, and his own life. His love made the world holy.
The chaos of this world comes from a false kind of love that is based upon pleasure that gives rise to competition, the pursuit of security and control at all costs, and selfishness. That love cannot comprehend the length and breadth and height and depth of God’s love made flesh in Jesus. That is why the cross confounds the ignorant and shames the world. It demands conversion, the unity of all humanity,
cooperation, hospitality, vulnerability, a quest of justice; and getting there will involve some birth pangs, death to an old life in which we are broken, and birth to a new one that is more whole. It will require the courage to life God’s love in the midst of chaos and opposition from a world that have everything to lose.
The cross we lift today, the cross we touch today, the cross we kiss today is the sign of love made perfect. It is our best hope for peace, because it is a love that means love of enemy. It is our only hope, and the only Joy that will last. Come, let us adore! Come. Let us be transformed by love!