Day Thirty-nine

Our Lenten journey brings us to the foot of the Cross, and it seems like a very final destination indeed. Just when I was beginning to think that I understood a little bit, to think that I was making some sort of progress, I end up here and I’m not so certain anymore. I can’t find that Jesus ever actually said that I am supposed to join him there—to myself be crucified, that is—so what can its purpose be? I have been told that the early Christian community used the sign of the fish to identify themselves, and that it wasn’t until later that the Cross became the universal symbol of the faith. What am I to make of this instrument of violence, death and destruction now that I stand in its shadow?

I am beginning to understand that the Cross at its nexus of intersecting planes perfectly signifies the meaning and purpose of the Christ, that being the full and complete connection of the self with the Other, the conscious realization that there is no separation. The miracle of birth marks the beginning of this consciousness, but it is difficult to look at death as equally miraculous precisely because in its mysteriousness it appears to be the end of such cognizance. With all due respect to the traditional interpretation that Jesus’ death upon the Cross somehow magically saved humankind, I find it profoundly more meaningful to understand the event as the man’s ultimate demonstration of the Truth that even death cannot destroy the connection!

Actually, scripture and tradition support such a conclusion arrived at through the employment of experience and reason. When I began this series it probably seemed that I came down rather hard on the apostle Paul, but I really meant to be critical of the way his thoughts, too, have been misinterpreted down through the millennia. One test of Truth is its timelessness, and this eternal quality is found in Paul’s words to the early community of believers in Rome: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39 NRSV)