The Cross cannot
be devaluated
Second Part

But our predicament is that the cross is not just a reality way back there in 33 AD; it is today, it is indeed contemporary. We are on Calvary . To the question, “Were you there when they hanged him on the tree?” O ur answer is we were there. We are there in the wickedness, the greed and envy of high priest; we are there in the abandonment of Jesus by his disciples; and aren't we sometimes tempted to abandon him? We are there in the betrayal of Jesus by Judas; and aren't we sometimes prone to betray Jesus' idealism, Jesus' demands of us, Jesus' love?

“Because of sin,” said the philosopher Blaise Pascal, “Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world.

The essence of sin, a rejection of Christ's redemption, can never be devaluated.

On the other hand, the meaning of the Cross as demonstrating God's love cannot be devaluated, either. He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that bought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. For God did not send his Son to die on the cross in order to appease himself. The cross is not to induce God to love us. God's love is eternal, unchanging, uncalculating. The hymn is right, “And from my stricken heart with tears, two wonders I confess—the wonders of his redeeming love and my unworthiness.” Someone has written:

The cross is a mirror in which we may see

Ourselves and although it is an ugly, twisted

Reflection, this view points to man's greatest

Need: the forgiving love of God.

There is an old French poem which illustrates the wonder of Christ's persistent love on the cross. It tells of an adventuress who tests whether the young man she is in love with has truly lost his love for his mother. She challenges the young man that a proof that he no longer loves his mother, he tear out his mother's heart out of her and present in his hands from his evil mission, he stumbles and falls. Then from the heart comes his mother's compassionate voice: “My son, are you hurt?”

Such is the love of Christ from the cross; he did say: “Father, forgive them.” St. Paul writes of God's love indicating that such is the magnificence of God's love that “while we were yet sinners, helpless because of sin, Christ died for us.” In other words, Jesus took the risk for our sake. There is an old song we no longer sing where a line says that “in the amazing grace of Jesus, he died for such a worm as I.” TO BE CONTINUED*

back to top