The Old Rugged Cross

This reflection comes from my ordination paper entitled "I am a Pilgrim."

A long time ago in Christian history, on a hill far away stood an old rugged cross. It’s an image that is maybe one of the universal symbols that the various strains of Christianity share. Some people debate whether or not a cross displayed in a church should depict Christ on it. There are some feminist theologians who wonder if the cross is nothing more than symbol of divine child abuse – pointing upward to an angry God in the sky who sent his only son to take on the burden of sin in the world by dying a vicious death to atone for humanity.

When contemplating the cross, I have to ask myself “Which God is this?” Is the God that Jesus is pointing to on the cross a punishing, angry father, or is it the God who entered the human experience through Jesus in order to help remind humanity that we are called to something more than just depravity?

Douglas John Hall says in his book The Cross in Our Context,

The cross of Jesus Christ is God’s claim to this world – the claim, however, not of a despot, yearning for greater power and glory, but of a lover yearning to love and be loved, and thus to liberate the beloved from false masters… The cross of Jesus Christ is the end-consequence of the divine determination to be "with us" (Emmanuel) unreservedly… God, in the biblical tradition is with us voluntarily – through love alone.

Because humanity was, and is, trapped in ways that push away from God, God entered human history in the form of Jesus in a display of compassion to suffer with us. Through Jesus, God became human and suffered under the principalities that govern the earth, the principalities that we humans are subject to everyday.

For me, the cross of Jesus does not point to a God in the sky, judging and condemning humanity. Instead, I believe that the cross of Jesus points directly to where God wants to help humanity the most, that is, amidst the despair and tribulations that daily attempt to kill the human spirit. God uses the cross to point to the pain in our lives, to remember despair, but to also find grace, hope and new beginnings.