Contemplation of the Cross

Flogged. Pierced. Ridiculed. Slapped. Burdened. Contorted. Crucified. This is the Cross of Christ. It is horrific. We adorn our churches with a symbol of death. This is what we hold up as a symbol of hope? 

We see in Grunewald’s painting Christ stretched out, his hands upturned impaled with the nails. His head is downcast and his body distorted. He is stripped bare. Blood drips down his body. This is the “wondrous cross?” This is what Christ call us to?

We cry lead me to Calvary. Do we know what we are saying?

The Son of God died. Have we heard it so much that we are no longer shocked? Jesus, God’s very self, Creator of all, the Most High, King of kings, Commander of the hosts of heaven, the Messiah, lowered himself and died.

Yet at his death, death too was slain. As John the Baptist proclaimed, Christ came to take away the sin of the world. Christ overcame sin not through power and might, but in death. He absorbs evil and suffering so that in his death, they die too. The light takes in the darkness, and the darkness cannot remain.

 Christ’s death is not a sacrifice to save us from God; it is God’s self-sacrifice to save us from sin, to save us from ourselves. It by his blood that God reconciles to himself all things.

This is our hope, this is our call. It is the wondrous cross full of sorrow and love. Christ’s love is abundant that he would die, that he would take the full horror of the cross so that we might live. But the cross is not just to be accepted and revered; we are not just to stand in awe, we are to follow. We see more fully in the cross, in his death, Christ’s call: “I am the way, the truth and the life.”