 from
the Minister & President
Search for the True Cross: Pointing to
Resurrection
April, 2004
By Nancy S. Taylor
On
Ash Wednesday I attended a private screening of "The Passion
of the Christ" to which Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant
and Jewish leaders had been invited. In form, function and
derivation, the film is a medieval passion play, a pre-Vatican
II Stations of the Cross. It is more dependant on the visions
of an anti-Semitic, nineteenth century, German nun [1] than
on the four gospels. While it presents a vivid palate of
colors, sights, emotions and effects, it sounds a single
theological note: that of redemptive suffering.with the emphasis
on suffering.
Across
the United Church of Christ we have, sometimes, under-represented
the cross, minimized Christ's suffering, muted the atonement,
and avoided wrestling with the meaning and challenge of sacrifice:
Jesus' sacrifice, but also ours. To what sacrifices are we
called for the sake of a gospel that remains foolishness
to the world, a stumbling block and an offence?
To
approach Holy Week and Easter Sunday is, inexorably, to approach
the cross. For Christians, the cross is everywhere: in Christian
art, architecture and iconography, in hymnody and liturgies,
on altars, at shrines and in jewelry. Although it has not
always been so [2] ,
today it is the pre-eminent symbol of the faith we bear and
the life we share.
Yet,
throughout Christian history and to this day, followers of
Jesus have rarely agreed on the meaning of the cross. Some
traditions display the crucifix (the cross to which is affixed
a representation of the body of Jesus), while others display
a bare cross, and still others decline to display the cross
at all. And, if we do not agree on whether or how to display
the cross, you can imagine the theological disputes about
the doctrine of the atonement! Furthermore, the Christian
cross has sometimes been twisted and distorted in the service
of evil: the burning cross of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi
swastika come to mind.
A
medieval legend about the search for the true cross tells
the story of Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine. She
is directed in a vision to find the true cross upon which
Jesus had been crucified. Helena finds the spot and begins
to dig. Beneath the rubble she unearths three crosses lying
in disarray: the one upon which Jesus had been crucified,
as well as the two upon which criminals had been crucified
on either side of Jesus. Helena now has to distinguish the
true cross from the false crosses. The true cross is finally
revealed when, by its presence, it revives a woman who had
been mortally ill (while the other two, similarly tested,
do not). The legend attests that the true cross can be discerned
by its fruits: whether or not it heals and brings fife.
By
this same test the crosses of the Klu Klux Klan and the Nazi
swastika are exposed as false
crosses. They are twisted and evil distortions of the cross
of Christ. They do not heal, but rather, they bring harm
and hate.
The legend
reminds us that the search for the True Cross always involves
a pilgrimage: journey, testing, and discerning. It is not
enough to be presented with a cross, neither by
Mel Gibson or anyone else. Together, we must test it, asking:
Does it do harm or does it heal? Does it bring brokenness
or reconciliation? Does it plant the seeds of hatred or of
love? And, perhaps most importantly, does it point beyond
itself - beyond pain and suffering, beyond hate and brutality
- to resurrection? Does it, in other words, point to the
risen Christ? And, having done so, does it call us to a journey
of faith and discipleship during which we are moved
respond to Jesus' invitation to take up our cross and follow
him?
[1] Anne
Catherine Emmerich lived between 1774 and 1824. A German
nun who was renowned as a mystic and stigmatic, she had
dreams or visions of the life of Christ. Like many of
her contemporaries, she believed that Jews were collectively
cursed for the crucifixion of Jesus, and her narratives
emphasize Jewish evildoing.
[2] For
the first three centuries A.D., Jesus and the faith were
represented, not by a cross, but primarily by a fish , representing
the Greek letters of Jesus' title as Son of God.
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