Christians have become so accustomed to seeing the crucifix—in churches, in schools, on seasonal greeting cards, or worn as jewelry around people’s necks—that they have lost any sense of how awful and strange it is. But to the first Christians, the cross of Christ was that and more.
Paul called it “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” insinuating that it was sure to bother just about everybody. For the first several centuries of Christianity, artists were reluctant to depict the death of the Lord because it was just too terrible. And yet, Paul cany say, “We proclaim Christ crucified,” and the entire Christian tradition—from Augustine to Francis of Assisi to Dante to Ignatius of Loyola to Trappist monks in the hills of Kentucky—has echoed him. Somehow they knew that writhing figure pinned to his cross is the whole story.
What is that story? The Crucifixion of Jesus is God’s judgment on the world and the fullest expression of the divine anger at sin. 𝑾𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒚 𝒂 𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒖𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔.
What brought Jesus to the cross? Stupidity, anger, mistrust, institutional injustice, betrayal of friends, denial, unspeakable cruelty, scapegoating, and fear. In other words, all of our dysfunction is revealed on that cross. In the light of the cross, no once can honestly say, “I’m okay, and you’re okay.”
In the tormented face of Christ crucified, we know that something has gone terribly wrong with God’s creation, that we are like prisoners chained inside of an escape-proof prison, that we are at war with ourselves.
Does this mean God the Father is a cruel taskmaster demanding a bloody sacrifice to appease his anger? No, because we also see something else in the brutality of the cross. We see that God himself has come to stand with us—shoulder to shoulder—in our dysfunction. 𝑱𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒔’ 𝑪𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒙𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒖𝒑 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒔𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑮𝒐𝒅.
-𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑥𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ, Bishop Robert Barron
