Sacred Neighbor. Sacred Self. Part 5
For the last two thousand years, the cross has been used as a banner and insignia for multiple causes. It has been employed to activate vast humanitarian efforts, meeting the needs of the poor and marginalized worldwide. It has also caused great damage, leading to the amassing of power, land, and resources. Just about every political party in the history of the West has at some point used the cross to advance its sectarian agendas. If one believes the cross fully supports their legislative ideologies while opposing others, they are many things, but unique is not one of them.
The cross has been used to bring optimism to the chronically discouraged. Some people see the cross and have great confidence that all will be made right one day, and justice will flow like a mighty river. Others see the cross as a symbol of hypocrisy, tribalism, prejudicial agendas, and the thievery of innocence.
The cross has been seen as a source of eternal wisdom and understanding of human disorder. It has also been viewed as a source of willful arrogance and rejection of our physical realities. It has been used as an excuse for unnuanced retaliation, carrying out heavy-handed, eye-for-an-eye systems of vengeance. It has also been used to promote decisive acts of forgiveness and restoration. The cross has served as a divider between adherents who fit certain demographic and sociological descriptions and those who do not.
The cross has been used to justify the purchase of the costliest pair of sneakers, rendering the speaker on stage a bit more relevant than he fears he is. It has also led others to buy shoes for the impoverished, who have no means to do so on their own. It has been used to relegate women to mere support roles, keeping them silent in church and busy in the kitchen. It has also elevated women to positions of great leadership and respect, placing them resolutely behind the pulpit and the podiums of our highest institutions of learning.
The cross has been used to embrace some while canceling others, to enslave some while setting others free, to enrich some while causing others to sell all they own. It has been wielded by many to generate status and influence and used by others as an altar to slay their self-interested ambitions.
No matter how the cross has been used or abused over the last thousands of years, one thing it has undoubtedly represented is a state of despair. Ever since the first appearance of a wooden cross around the 6th century BCE, it has been used as an instrument of punishment reserved only for the poor. It was for the unconnected and marginalized. It served as the ultimate display of power for those who could command such an execution and as a final display of humiliation toward those trapped on the negative end of tyrannical power.
The cross was always for the lowly, never the elite. The criminal, never the model citizen. The outcast, never the welcomed. The loser, never the winner.
So, the question remains:
What is God doing on a cross?
It makes a bit more sense when one considers how Jesus lived his thirty-something years on our pale blue dot. He didn’t just die as a marginalized, underprivileged man; he lived that way as well—The Great The Other.
While most in our culture today are born into comfort and celebration, Jesus was born in a stable, surrounded by nothing but curious livestock. While many in our Western culture will never have to decide to leave their homeland in hopes of a better life, Jesus was a migrant, escaping death only by crossing into a more survivable situation. While others would one day use his teachings as a means to affluence, Jesus was raised poor, with humble, working-class beginnings. While some use his teachings to maintain a safe distance from those they consider immoral and disgusting, these were the very people fortunate enough to be called friends of Jesus of Nazareth…