The Cross: Get Over Yourself
Jesus walked by the docks, and stopped when he saw several fishermen there; cleaning their nets.
He ambled over to them, and gave them a simple, provocative, and yet strange opportunity: follow me.
Follow me? They had never seen this guy before! They had no idea who he was. Really at this point in his life, no one knew who he was – except maybe his family.
But these fishermen – complete with wives, families, lives, and quite obviously, a job – dropped everything and followed him.
And they didn’t stop following him, until his road took a sharp turn – towards Golgotha. Then they abandoned him.
They abandoned him because his journey changed – his destination changed.
Actually, the journey and destination were the same as they had always been – they just weren’t the journey and destination that Peter, James, and John had in mind.
Though this journey was always on the mind of God.
It was a journey that they would pick up again, after the discovery on the morning of the third day.
And it is a journey that we are all asked to take – the journey that is supposed to mark our lives, make our lives, and make our lives different.
The journey to the cross.
Take up your cross and follow me.
When Jesus was lifted on the cross for all the world to see: he was lifted high. He was lifted in agony. He was lifted with purpose. And he knew the enormity of the moment: he was going to die; this was it; never would the world be the same again; never would all creation be the same again.
When we ponder the cross, it is easy to slip into what the cross does for us.
Hundred and hundreds of years of Christian theology has tried to figure out exactly how the event of the cross gives us the gifts of salvation and the forgiveness of our sins.
There’s the ransom theory of the atonement, which says that the every sinner’s life belonged to Satan. So, Jesus – who had not committed sin – willingly gave his life as a ransom for all humanity. (This is the theory of atonement that we see very clearly in “The Chronicles of Narnia.”)
There were some theologians who didn’t like this theory, because they didn’t like the idea of the Devil being owed anything by God. So they came up with the Satisfaction theory of the atonement. It says that God couldn’t just wipe away human sin without sacrifice – without it being paid for. So, Jesus, the Lamb of God, offered his life sacrificially for everyone, paying God back, and giving God what he needed to make things right.
There are other theories – it would be good to note that no theory is laid out in scripture. The Bible tells us that Christ destroyed sin and death on the cross, but it never says ‘how’ it did what it did.
And I think that’s all good and well, myself, because to make the cross about us only shines a light on our own self-absorption.
The cross was God being God: it was the moment when God showed what kind of God he was, and how far he was willing to go. He was lifted high on the cross for all the world to see, so that all the world might see what love, power, grace, and strength really is.
We all too often make Christianity about us: we make it about getting our butts into Heaven – about giving us blessings – about getting us out of the world on the first rapture train. But, for it to be authentic, it has to be about God!
We’re always on God’s mind, we’re always in the path of God’s love – the problem comes in when we are always on our mind, and we’re always in the path of our own love and self-absorption.
It’s like the bad marriage where the wife is looking out for the needs of the husband – and the husband is looking out for the needs of the. . . husband!
We are freed to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we are freed to love our neighbor as ourselves – because God is loving us! Because our neighbor is loving us!
And so, when God looks at the cross, he is freed to think of us, and when we look at the cross we can then put our own selfish needs and desires aside and think of God.
On Good Friday we always read the passion from the Gospel of John. John’s Passion is remarkably different from the Passion accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke. No shouts of ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me.’ No crying out in a loud voice.
In John, Jesus is completely in control. He coolly reminds Pilate that Pilate has no power to do anything, except the Power of God from on high. He is no sooner nailed to the cross that he’s setting up the care arrangements for his mother. And in his final moments, he gives up his spirit – it’s not taken away from him, he gives it up.
In John, the cross isn’t just the moment of execution, it’s the moment of exaltation – it’s the moment of enthronement. It when the King of Kings, the Son of Man, the Lamb of God is lifted high upon the cross for all the world to see.
The cross – especially in the Gospel of John, is all about God. It’s God being God. It’s God showing all the world what true power, victory, and triumph looks like. It’s God showing the world exactly what he’s make of. It’s God redefining love, and grace, and holiness.
It’s interesting how many times, and in how many ways humanity has tried to be like God. Adam and Eve ate the apple so that they might have the same knowledge that God has. The people of Babel built the tower so that they might be as high as God. Today we try and manipulate life in a Petri dish, create machines as smart or smarter than we were created. We build bigger and bigger bombs, to wield more and more power – we build buildings with their own climate systems that can be controlled with the simple turn of a knob– and we try and decide who has a right to life and who doesn’t.
The ironic thing is, if we really wanted to be like God – if we really wanted that kind of power and glory – if we wanted to taste omnipotence and omnipresence – we couldn’t come near it with bombs or towers. We couldn’t hold a candle to it with Petri dishes or apples.
To wield that kind of power we’d have to give everything up: control, prestige, comfort, might – and life.
That kind of divine power only comes with the love, grace, and triumph of the cross: where the victim is the victor – the executed is the exalted, and where the awesome, thunderous, and majestic Presence of God is lifted high for all the world to see -
And when he breathed his last, and gave up his spirit, the view from the cross never changed – and his love for the world – his love for his executors – his love for his betrayers, and deniers, and his followers who fled for fear of facing the same fate –
That love never faltered, that power never flickered – it was stamped on creation forever, stamped high on the cross, lifted for all to see – and believe – and know – and follow.
He ambled over to them, and gave them a simple, provocative, and yet strange opportunity: follow me.
Follow me? They had never seen this guy before! They had no idea who he was. Really at this point in his life, no one knew who he was – except maybe his family.
But these fishermen – complete with wives, families, lives, and quite obviously, a job – dropped everything and followed him.
And they didn’t stop following him, until his road took a sharp turn – towards Golgotha. Then they abandoned him.
They abandoned him because his journey changed – his destination changed.
Actually, the journey and destination were the same as they had always been – they just weren’t the journey and destination that Peter, James, and John had in mind.
Though this journey was always on the mind of God.
It was a journey that they would pick up again, after the discovery on the morning of the third day.
And it is a journey that we are all asked to take – the journey that is supposed to mark our lives, make our lives, and make our lives different.
The journey to the cross.
Take up your cross and follow me.
When Jesus was lifted on the cross for all the world to see: he was lifted high. He was lifted in agony. He was lifted with purpose. And he knew the enormity of the moment: he was going to die; this was it; never would the world be the same again; never would all creation be the same again.
When we ponder the cross, it is easy to slip into what the cross does for us.
Hundred and hundreds of years of Christian theology has tried to figure out exactly how the event of the cross gives us the gifts of salvation and the forgiveness of our sins.
There’s the ransom theory of the atonement, which says that the every sinner’s life belonged to Satan. So, Jesus – who had not committed sin – willingly gave his life as a ransom for all humanity. (This is the theory of atonement that we see very clearly in “The Chronicles of Narnia.”)
There were some theologians who didn’t like this theory, because they didn’t like the idea of the Devil being owed anything by God. So they came up with the Satisfaction theory of the atonement. It says that God couldn’t just wipe away human sin without sacrifice – without it being paid for. So, Jesus, the Lamb of God, offered his life sacrificially for everyone, paying God back, and giving God what he needed to make things right.
There are other theories – it would be good to note that no theory is laid out in scripture. The Bible tells us that Christ destroyed sin and death on the cross, but it never says ‘how’ it did what it did.
And I think that’s all good and well, myself, because to make the cross about us only shines a light on our own self-absorption.
The cross was God being God: it was the moment when God showed what kind of God he was, and how far he was willing to go. He was lifted high on the cross for all the world to see, so that all the world might see what love, power, grace, and strength really is.
We all too often make Christianity about us: we make it about getting our butts into Heaven – about giving us blessings – about getting us out of the world on the first rapture train. But, for it to be authentic, it has to be about God!
We’re always on God’s mind, we’re always in the path of God’s love – the problem comes in when we are always on our mind, and we’re always in the path of our own love and self-absorption.
It’s like the bad marriage where the wife is looking out for the needs of the husband – and the husband is looking out for the needs of the. . . husband!
We are freed to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we are freed to love our neighbor as ourselves – because God is loving us! Because our neighbor is loving us!
And so, when God looks at the cross, he is freed to think of us, and when we look at the cross we can then put our own selfish needs and desires aside and think of God.
On Good Friday we always read the passion from the Gospel of John. John’s Passion is remarkably different from the Passion accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke. No shouts of ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me.’ No crying out in a loud voice.
In John, Jesus is completely in control. He coolly reminds Pilate that Pilate has no power to do anything, except the Power of God from on high. He is no sooner nailed to the cross that he’s setting up the care arrangements for his mother. And in his final moments, he gives up his spirit – it’s not taken away from him, he gives it up.
In John, the cross isn’t just the moment of execution, it’s the moment of exaltation – it’s the moment of enthronement. It when the King of Kings, the Son of Man, the Lamb of God is lifted high upon the cross for all the world to see.
The cross – especially in the Gospel of John, is all about God. It’s God being God. It’s God showing all the world what true power, victory, and triumph looks like. It’s God showing the world exactly what he’s make of. It’s God redefining love, and grace, and holiness.
It’s interesting how many times, and in how many ways humanity has tried to be like God. Adam and Eve ate the apple so that they might have the same knowledge that God has. The people of Babel built the tower so that they might be as high as God. Today we try and manipulate life in a Petri dish, create machines as smart or smarter than we were created. We build bigger and bigger bombs, to wield more and more power – we build buildings with their own climate systems that can be controlled with the simple turn of a knob– and we try and decide who has a right to life and who doesn’t.
The ironic thing is, if we really wanted to be like God – if we really wanted that kind of power and glory – if we wanted to taste omnipotence and omnipresence – we couldn’t come near it with bombs or towers. We couldn’t hold a candle to it with Petri dishes or apples.
To wield that kind of power we’d have to give everything up: control, prestige, comfort, might – and life.
That kind of divine power only comes with the love, grace, and triumph of the cross: where the victim is the victor – the executed is the exalted, and where the awesome, thunderous, and majestic Presence of God is lifted high for all the world to see -
And when he breathed his last, and gave up his spirit, the view from the cross never changed – and his love for the world – his love for his executors – his love for his betrayers, and deniers, and his followers who fled for fear of facing the same fate –
That love never faltered, that power never flickered – it was stamped on creation forever, stamped high on the cross, lifted for all to see – and believe – and know – and follow.
posted by Fr. Rick Morley at 8:03 PM
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