Why the Cross?

Holy Saturday

All around me there is activity, people who spring into action, who don't just sit there but do something. Into the stillness of my body and mind irrupts the image of him who waited for the Kingdom of God and never found it; who said positive things about Jesus without following Him; who got courage when it was too late for courage; who spoke up to the mighty when the risk was low; who came through with a big donation to cover up his unwillingness to offer and present his self. Joseph, Joseph .... how often have I met you in others, even in myself! On this eerily quiet day I can suddenly see so clearly what's wrong with the human race. We yearn for God's presence and reject or ignore it when it is in our midst. We think ourselves religious because we have some notion of a Higher Being “up there”, some basic morality, and a concept of judgment (all of which we mean to circumscribe Christianity), but we can't bring ourselves to discipline, to discipleship, to sit and learn from Him, to be changed. We wax bold when others have paid already, with their reputation, careers, even their lives, for their timely witness and fearless proclamation of the gospel. We mightily and forcefully lament and bewail the manifold sins and wickedness of ages past and distant rulers while the beam in our own eyes makes us legally blind. We throw money at whatever problem we perceive, we are generous with what we have as long as we can withhold our selves, our souls and bodies. We are doing much but change neither ourselves nor others. We practice charity because it makes us feel good and gives us a raison d'être. We “adopt” children in far away countries but neither care nor know what impact our actions have on their indigenous culture; we feed the hungry but refuse to acknowledge the role we ourselves play in creating that hunger; we are generous without ever wondering why it is that we can be generous. We tell the world that we are needed because we want to save it whilst, at the same time, we ignore the Master's injunction about those who would gain the whole world and lose their souls. Why is it that we are able to attract people to projects with appeal, “ministries” which “serve” someone in need, while the ministry offered to us in study, prayer, worship, and learning is such a hard sell? Joseph, o Joseph: so much, so late, so useless!

I want this Saturday to be holy. I want to be, to sit, to look at the sepulchre. But noise disturbs me, the noise of hectic, frantic consultations, of planning sessions and committee meetings, of negotiations, deals, and gives and takes. If Joseph was trying to work out his past, Pilate and his cohorts are managing the future. Damage control. Spin doctors. How to handle the fall-out from all of this. If Joseph wanted his dead Jesus out of pious sentiment, Pilate wants Him because of political security. He is a career man, someone who looks to the future. His story is history, over and out. Let there be no sequel. Nothing worse than a man who is relevant, who connects, whose life and death mean something. A living Jesus: the ultimate nightmare! Our creed rushes us from the birth from the virgin Mary to the crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, not a chance to pause and ask: who was He? What did He say? Why did our hearts burn? Pilate, Pilate …. as I sit still and contemplate the sepulchre I begin to understand. Humans want the dead Jesus, a failed but appealing hero, someone they can put up on pedestals, whom they can lift higher and higher until He is out of sight, until He becomes an object of worship and not the One who called us friends. We want His tomb to be sealed, guarded by a cohort, we want Him tucked away in tabernacles and sanctuaries or locked into the doctrinal system of the Holy Trinity. How much energy went into keeping Jesus in the tomb, embalming, preserving, worshiping a relic? The chief priests, the Pharisees, the soldiers, Pontius Pilate, even the suspected disciples: they are not the enemies but the friends and promoters of religion. They bequeath a cult to us, a kind of ancestral faith. The only good Jesus, they seem to say, is the dead one: He died for our sins, He paid the price, His cross is what matters, forget His life, don't go there, it may, well: it just may change you! The cross is what humans do to that which gives life. As long as we are allowed to reminisce, to engage in hallowed ceremonies remembering Him who once was we will be successful in keeping Him at arms' length. As long as you worship Him (by all means) you won't have to follow Him. Thank Him for His death, rejoice in His departure for the heavens, and forget about His real life among us.

I have decided to be, to sit, opposite the tomb, for one day, from sunset to sunset. For twenty-four hours I wish to be caught up in this dark, black hole which is my Self. Before and after. I want to learn how to mourn (how blessed that is!) the death of Him who was, an