INTRO
Knowing the physics of flight -- how lift, drag, and thrust work to get a body off the ground -- is not the same as watching the ground drop below you as the clouds surround you.
Knowing what musical modes are and being able to tell someone John Coltrane used these in innovative ways to push free jazz forward is not the same as putting an intuition in your soul into notes in the air for anyone with ears to hear.
Knowing the Queens Gambit or what a force out is in baseball is not the same as besting a worthy opponent in Chess or feeling your legs take you somewhere your conscious mind may not even know you need to go so you can feel the ball hit your glove and throw where you should to get an out for your team.
And knowing that Jesus said do not worry, and love your enemies, is not the same as feeling the lightness of trust take root in your gut or feeling bitterness lose its grip on your chest.
Some things, you have to practice to understand.
So in this series, we hope to help you practice your faith so you can know salvation.
This time we explore how Christian practice can help us see that the cross of Jesus is so much more than something that happened way back when, and why the cross is something Christians should want to live out in places like those distorted by senseless suffering and haunted by Lynching Trees.
STORY
In 2011, seven years before he died, American theologian James Cone published a book titled, "The Cross and the Lynching Tree."
Cone was born in Arkansas, in 1938. And in the first few chapters of this book he describes the atrocities inflicted on Black Americans as he came of age. Cone explores the effects of lynching on American Society as a whole, but also gives first-hand testimony to the way the constant anxiety caused by the threat of lynching shaped the daily lives and perspectives of he and his family and friends.
And then Cone tells us what people in that situation were able to see when they contemplated the Cross of Christ. In one of the most striking and revealing pages, Cone remembers a hymn they sang in his childhood church that asserted, quote, "I was there when they whipped Him up an' dey whipped Him down ... I was there when they nailed him to the cross ... I was there when they took Him down."
This reminds me of the passage in Deuteronomy 5, which we covered in the last episode on Sabbath, that commands all the people of God across generations to rest on the Seventh Day because, quote, "you were slaves in Egypt." So just as we are invited to remember the Exodus story as a first-hand experience, Cone and those whose imaginations were similarly shaped, were able to experience the cross with that kind of immediacy.
And after Cone bears witness to the way Black Christians found hope and strength in the cross during times of fear and hopelessness, he asks a question that haunts so much of American Christianity, "Why didn't the prominent Christian theologians of the time, especially Protestant Liberal theologians, see a connection between the cross and the lynching tree, connections that seemed so clear to Black preachers and poets?"
In this episode, we'll take up that mournful and disturbing question, because we believe it can help us to not just talk about the cross, and form opinions about the cross and its potential effects on the world, but instead become the kinds of people whose view of the cross leads us to practice Christlikeness and so share the actual effects of Jesus' reality and character and work for the good of the world.
To begin, let's look at how the Gospel of Matthew tries to shape our vision of the cross.
Just like the opening scene of any movie begins to shape the way you understand that movie's climax, the very 1st verse of 1st chapter of Matthew, which is also the 1st book of New Testament, begins to shape the way we should understand the moment Jesus ascends the cross to effect our salvation. It does this by asserting that this is, quote, "An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham."
At least, this is how just about every translation renders it. And there is a good reason: it's a good translation. The word converted to the English, "genealogy" does indeed mean "genealogy." And, as it happens, the next 16 verses give exactly an account of who begat whom, who then began whom, until Jesus entered into our world of Kings and prostitutes and traitors and martyrs and insiders and outsiders - all of whom find a place in Jesus' family tree.
So it's a good translation. It's just not a complete one. Because the word rendered "genealogy" also has another meaning, one that will become obvious as soon as I tell you that the actual Greek word there is the word, "genesis."
So even if you know nothing about Greek, some of the layers of meaning are likely becoming obvious .... But the full implications of that meaning will take some time. And for the purposes of this episode, let's look at how the association of genesis with Jesus' birth helps us understand the climax of Jesus life on the Cross.
To understand the cross, Matthew want to first help you understand that Jesus is the origin and sustaining force of our life walking around with us. And to drive it home, he tells the story of the Angel telling Mary that her child will be so unique he will be called "Emmanuel," with means "God with us." God in flesh kicks off this story.
Then our Creator gets to the business of giving us our life back.
He touches us, and as our Origin comes into contact with our flesh, he causes our blind eyes to see again (8:29), and even raises us from the dead (9:25).
He speaks to us and as we hear the voice of the Word that ordered the cosmos, our rebellious and destructive and minds and spirits are offered freedom.
But as all this good comes into the world, our responses get more and more unsettling. He loves us even when we mess up. And what do we do to him? We accuse him of being a drunk and a sinner (11:19).
In the episodes we run him out of town (8:28-34). Then the church people, those who should be able to recognize our Origin when we see him, instead say that He is a demon (8:34).
This gets to the point where we not only fail to recognize the dignity and worth of his life and work, but we come to hate him so much we cannot stand to have him working by our side and eating with our children and moving through our neighborhoods.
So we start making false accusations about him. We put him on trial and rig the results. We condemn the origin of our life ... to death.
But who are we to do that? If this is Emmanuel, how could mortals hurt God? Let alone kill Life?
But then we insult him, and his eyes flinch from a deep and true pain. When he looks at a dead loved one and at a lost city, he mourns and weeps. Is it actually possible for us to hurt God?
We tie his hands and feet, and the ropes hold him.
We beat him, and his flesh bruises.
We whip him. And he bleeds ...
And now we start to get this heavy feeling like this story might not end too well, as we realize: Jesus is human. In coming into our world of brokenness, our Creator made himself vulnerable. But it's too late. He is too mixed up in our hate, violence and selfishness. And before we can realize what we've done we have put him on the cross.
There he is. Hanging, beaten, bloody, broken. There is our Origin.
Don't look away.
Behold the source of life and hope and healing. Dead. Just as broken as we are.
To help us see the cross well, at this point it seems Matthew wants to lead us to ask a question: How can we ever commune with Life again when the source of Life is dead?
Now, Cone's question about why most Christians failed to see a connection between the Cross of Christ and the trees and lampposts that were used for lynchings, becomes even more relevant and pressing when we notice some of the ways Christians have made those kinds of connections in the past.
For instance, in the Middle Ages. Now we all know this was a time where the Black Death plague ravaged whole populations.
But there was another, less famous disease the kept cropping up called St. Anthony's fire. There are no hard stats to let us know, or even accurately estimate how many people died from this disease in total, but in the 990s alone we know it took out somewhere between 20 and 40 thousand people in Southern France. That was one decade, in one part of Europe. And St. Anthony's fire raged through all of Europe for another 700 years.
The "fire" in the name refers to the intense burning sensation people who caught the disease would feel in their extremities. They also suffered seizures and hallucinations. And it effected blood flow, so certain parts of the body like the lips and fingers and toes would turn blue.
Victims also developed welts and open red sores that often turned gangrenous.
And because of this infection, many victims had to have their legs amputated.
Today know St. Anthony's fire was cause by a fungus that grew in the grains they used to make their bread. This story should make Christians ask, "How can someone share communion with the source of their life when a twisted form of life infects the food that is supposed to nourish them and instead makes their own flesh turning on them?"
That question should also take Christians back to the Gospel. One place we can look, is the night before Jesus was betrayed and sent to his crucifixion. In that moment of darkness, Jesus was in a room with his disciples. And swirling all around the outside of that room was the chaos of the world. Suspicion and hate and fear were twisting hearts and minds and generating rumors and accusations that poisoned soldiers and rulers and commoners alike. And in a few hours, this would lead their bodies to turn on the Origin of their life. All around, and in places even inside that room, was all the sickness and violence and pain that makes our souls and the very fabric of reality groan for healing and redemption.
And in the vortex of this bloody mess, playing host at a table is the One holding it all together. And to nourish and guide us through what we are about to live as the story unfolds, Jesus holds up a piece of bread and blesses it.
Emmanuel, our genesis, the One who can speak life into existence and invite beauty from chaos speaks goodness and wholeness on this piece of bread.
Then he breaks it.
Why would he break what he just blessed?
Then he says, "This is my body, broken for you" (Communion Pic)
Back in the Middle Ages, in honor of the life and work of a Saint who is considered to be the father of Christian monasticism and who emphasized the Christian's call to care for Christ as they cared for the sick, whose name was Anthony, the Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony was established in 1100 CE at Grenoble, France. This group founded additional monastery hospitals throughout Europe to care for the sick and dying. And, at this time, the primary disease they treated takes it name from a combination of the Saint, and the group of Christians who cared for those suffering, and the form of the suffering effected by the disease: St. Anthony's fire.
One famous artist, Matthias Grunewald (gruh-na-vald), painted an Altarpiece for one of these Monastery hospitals in Isenheim, in north-eastern France.
Grunewald's paintings on this altarpiece give some of the most visceral depictions of Christ's suffering on the cross. It's is hard to look at Christ's facial expression, twisted fingers and strained tendons without beginning to feel some real agony. But the paintings are not just brutal for the sake of brutality. There was something compassionate and redemptive guiding Grunewald's imagination and brush strokes. Zoom in to some of the details of the paintings, and you notice open, red sores on Christ's skin,
that look identical to the telltale symptoms of St. Anthony's fire.
And Christ's lips are not just warped by pain, they are also blue.
And if we remember one of the most common courses of treatment for St. Anthony's fire was amputation of the legs, just below the knees, we cannot help but notice the artist has split the lower panels under the altar precisely below Christ's knees. So as Christ is being placed in his tomb, Christ's legs look like those of someone who has suffered an amputation.
By including such clear references to the disease, on Christ' own body, Grunewald allowed the sick to truly see themselves in the narrative of Christ's life, and to draw strength from the pain that Christ endured on Calvary.
And do not miss: This altar is where they would offer the broken body and shed blood of Christ in communion.
Grunewald and the medieval Christians who suffered and cared for each other and worshipped together at this Altar seem to have been able to do exactly what Cone points out many recent American Christians were unable to do.
In healthy Christianity, there is not just a precedent for, there is a tradition of finding Christ with the broken and sick and hurting. In Isenheim, the monks and nuns who cared for the sick were able to perceive the connection between the suffering of the ill, and Christ's suffering. They saw and honored the close communion between the victims and their Savior, Christ and his children. It is part of our faith to help people commune with Christ, even in their miseries, and so actually live the redemptive power of Christ' passion.
So, when Cone makes the connection between Jesus' cross and the Black bodies that were hung from lynching trees, he is drawing from, and continuing, the Tradition of looking for Jesus to be present to the victims of the most heartrending and inexcusable tragedies.
So in the following conversation, Julius and I talk about how practicing the cross is not looking for hope and salvation by only turning our gaze back at something Jesus did way back when, to look for something that might excuse or explain what is happening now, but instead practicing the cross is to learn to see that what Emmanuel did in being with us back then, opened a way for Jesus to be Emmanuel everywhere, at all times. Our hope is to become, and help you become, people who can see Christ present with, and caring for, the victims now, in the middle of their pain and hopelessness. Actually holding the broken and desecrated bodies of his children - perhaps even through us.
DISCUSSION
Julius: Welcome back to “All Things,” this is Julius once again, and Wil…
Wilson: Hello
Julius: Hello. Glad to be here today. Um.
Wilson: I wasn’t saying hi to you, but you know. Hi Julius.
Julius: Oh, I was joining your hello.
Wilson: Oh yeah. Oh, there we go. Both hellos towards whomever.
Julius: There you go. Echoing the hellos. Um, and speaking of caring about people— great segue today… um, so in the story just prior to this conversation, we see that there is a tradition of finding Christ with the broken and the sick and the hurting. And here in the story, like the monks and the nuns who, not only cared for the sick, um, but they were able to imagine and perceive like the connection between these suffering people and the, and the ill, and to connect that with Christ’s suffering, to see the close communion between, um, the victims and the downtrodden that they're caring for and their savior who also suffered.
And so this sets up an interesting contrast to something that as we're going to talk about today, James Cone writes, um, in the first chapter of a book called crossing the lynching tree, which if you haven't read before, we strongly recommend that you read. Um, but in this first chapter he taught, he points out and laments, namely the inability of.
I mean, frankly, a lot of American white Christians to see Jesus in the victims of lynching and, and like race—like hate crimes. And so if seeing Christ united with those who are suffering and victims of these crimes is so it's such a part of like the Christian tradition and like the practice of the faith, what accounts for these moments of failure in the church where the church just absolutely fails to see um, the suffering in their midst and how that's connected to Christ suffering.
Wilson: It may be a little redundant, uh, but I feel like overall what could only help more is even just saying again— we could pull out mother Teresa…
Julius: Hmm.
Wilson: Saint mother Teresa. And when she was repeated the asked about how she can give such love, uh, to, to people in such desperate, desperate, Um, places for so long, what she would continue to say is she sees Christ in them.
Uh, that, that it's, you know, we're we just see a broken body, an emasculated body where we just see suffering. She saw Jesus. And to understand her, I think we don’t… we don't miss her regular habit. Uh, and for her as a, as a Catholic, she would do it through Eucharistic adoration and studying the scriptures, but she had concrete ways that she consistently practiced finding Christ in, in our world in stuff like bread and wine, in words on a page.
And because she had consistently trained herself through practice to recognize Christ. She said, “I can't not, because when I see them, that is what I see. I see Christ.” And you know, so we've got a re almost a near contemporary for many listening.
Our lives overlapped with her to the Isenheim Altarpiece, you know, back to this, the behavior of the Christians through so many, especially in the earlier centuries, when they start inventing and founding hospitals and over and over, this is part of our tradition.
So we have a whole tradition of great examples. And even artifacts and art that, that witness to this, this piece of the Christian tradition that sees Christ identified with, that sees Christ holding right, being there with, uh, the, the victims of violence and… right. Evil in all forms, like the kind of conscious mob, like intentionally shaped by hatred kind of violence that put him on the cross and that hung innocent people from lamp poles in the 20th century.
Um, and the kind of evil that to us, we might characterize as like mindless, you know, like illness or tragedies. Right. We have this tradition of being able to see Christ in the midst of those who suffer from all these atrocities, right. But we also have contemporary examples of Christians who fail to make that exact connection.
So what is behind that? I've asked a good deal of people. And in, in conversations with a whole range of folks of all sorts of different ages that I have recommended this chapter from this book, um— well, I mean, I recommend the whole book, but often it, you know, in some situations I'll just, you know… recommend the chapter to get things going.
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: And when people have voiced either, like, full defensiveness or, “Okay I'm open, but I have some questions." Right. And anywhere along that spectrum, when I've asked them, okay, well tell me about it. What is it? And what, what will often come is like a, “Hey, I agree. It was bad. It was wrong. I do agree. Christians should be against like racism and its effects.We should do what we can about it, but…” and here's the telling thing.
“But I struggle any time we, and this would be kind of, it's a variation of the wording that we put anyone in Christ place.” Right? “So to say Christ's cross was like the lynching tree or this or that makes me nervous because only Jesus saves us.”
And there's like, Jesus, his cross is unique because Jesus was unique. And so there's an impulse there to not diminish the importance and the centrality and the uniqueness of Jesus. That's one thing that people have been taught, and it's a good thing to be taught that Jesus is unique. Jesus is central. Jesus is of vital importance. That's good. We affirm that they've been taught that and they've caught, you know, they've internalized that they've caught it well.
And so there's something there, but one we want to point out is if, if we say that we also need to see that kind of like what's, what's lurking in the peripheral there, or maybe in the shadows, in the, in a full-on blind spot is if we talk about the cross that way, right, then obviously we view the cross differently than the artist responsible for the Isenheim Altarpiece and the monks and the nuns who offered communion there and went from that worship to go care for the sick, the way that they did. And mother Teresa, who through Eucharistic adoration would then move into the streets and the gutters of Calcutta and went and cared for those people and in the illness and those bodies. Yeah. There's a difference there. And the two ways of viewing the car. And the one that's behind the “Only Jesus’ cross saves us” really, it's it's sneaky because that move, even though it sounds good, it sounds like we're trying to create Christ unique in his, in his cross unique. It actually robs the cross of so much of its power. Because the move that's been made there is we've started to treat the cross as one thing way back in the past, that was like the transaction between God and us.
Julius: Yeah.
Julius: Okay. So I think. So what this all makes me think of, and um, this connection just happened to me while you were talking—and I'm grateful for it because it ties into this, this entire series, we’ve been talking about the idea of practice and thinking through that lens, like to even primarily look at what Jesus does on the cross and the death and the resurrection as a transaction, I think misses a huge point by, I guess reducing salvation to an external good as if it is an object to only be like, bought. Like that it's something to be taken possession of in the way that an object is rather than then a way of being that you are formed into. Um, and that's the kind of internal good that comes with, um, I suppose like journeying with Christ on the cross.
I think that when people get defensive of being like, “Hey, like the cross of Christ, like allows me to see the ways that whoa, Jesus is identifying with these people are suffering in our world.” I think people who, who kind of get defensive of that are feel that this view of the gospel is threatened where it's a simple kind of like a-to-b transactional external good.
Like, um, like, uh, all I know of the gospel is. Jesus buys our salvation by dying and like… All, all my money is on that we go to heaven after this, and that's the external good is that we don't go to hell or whatever, but that we miss that the whole internal good of what it means to the practice of becoming Christian.
Is to not just gain that external good of like, not burning for eternity, but like to become like Jesus. And part of that is to journey with Jesus on the cross to see like, what are you showing us here that that's a dimension of it, of like that it, it reveals something to us it's apocalyptic, Right.
That it reveals the violence.
That is in the water that we have gotten used to that that's part of what the cross does, but also that like a dimension of the cross is Jesus stepping into that with the broken among us. And so it's not just these dimensions get, um, get missed when we only see the cross as a means to get to… not burning.
Wilson: Right. That's, that's a good way to make a connection there between that kind of transactional view and, you know, what practice offers us… is directing our attention away from external goods towards internal goods, because the bigger picture there is Jesus… Jesus didn't just like walk into a bank account and say like, “Here are the names of my followers. Secretly put a million dollars in all their accounts.”
Jesus didn't do that. Bigger, truer, like what's, what's there in the story is Jesus went straight up into death to overcome and defeat death, not just to win some benefits, but, but to overcome, right, through. Through, in a completely godly way, in a way that is utterly different than how any other person would take on the problem of death.
Like the best we can come up with is numbing or power or pleasure. Right. That's the human- but Jesus goes through a way that involved all kinds of suffering, right. To undo death. Not, not by being more violent than the bad guys, not by, right, but to, to actually take care of the problem that no one could take care of other than God.
Right. If we understand death, uh, as, as genuine death… as anything that that word could like appropriately, appropriately be used for, only God can take care of that person. And the way that viewing the cross that's given to us in places like mother Teresa and how she cared for the sick, uh, and how that is tied to her Eucharistic adoration and what the Eucharist is and how the Eucharist is tied to the story, the actual story of the gospel and the Isenheim Altarpiece, where the, where the Eucharist, where communion was offered and how that's tied to the story. With that allows us to see in the cross is it makes a connection that is not possible and just a transactional piece.
And that connection there is if Jesus went to death to overcome it and undo it from the inside, then this is the way of viewing that cross in our ongoing communion with Christ in a way that allows the power of that to meet people in those moments where death actually threatens. Right. Instead of it being like a.. “Well, hands in the air. Death gets that.”
Julius: Right.
Wilson: Some sort of magic transaction has happened and maybe in some other place, right. Things will be, be better. It enables the Christ to, and this is what I say, like, this is where this— if you get what, what this way of viewing, what the, you know, the traditional way that we're making the ca- the Isenheim Altarpiece and the let's, let's just call it the mother Theresa way maybe. Um, what this way of viewing the cross does is actually make Christ more unique, and more powerful because. Right. It's one thing to be able to affect some kind of transaction that may be a few people could make a withdrawal on or something. It's another, it's an entirely different thing to be able to be present to everyone who has ever suffered.
And especially in the places where sin and death is wreaking its most malicious havoc… in, in terminal disease, and in hate crimes and stuff like that—to, to be able to be present to every single one of them and hold them and offer them a promise of justice and healing and life beyond the grave. That is, that is… I mean, at that point we're not just talking about like, “Ooh, let's only talk about Jesus this way.”
Now we're talking about God. Now we're talking about the kinds of things like— if that's true, now we're getting to the kinds of things that we've we've talked about is like the, the attributes that belong only to divinity, like omnipresence. And omnipotence. Like, the power to overcome that and to be present in each and every instance, not just to affect one transaction, one time at one point in history, but to be able to do something at that point in history that allows Christ to be present to and overcome death at each point in history when death tries to do the same kind of nonsense.
Julius: Mm.
Wilson: I mean, you want to make Jesus more unique and more powerful?
Julius: Yeah. Yeah, yea.
Wilson: Here’s the way.
Julius: Yeah. And to journey, to journey with the Christ, who does that is a, is a far messier and painful journey. Then I think that, um, I think there's a certain amount of like, there's a desire to kind of bypass that journey when we, when we like want to cling to, oh man. Well, as long as I, as long as I say this prayer, I'm good, right?
Like that, I don't have to worry about what's going on here. And it takes a certain time. Of like privilege in this world to be able to like, to think that of like, uh, as long as I said, the prayer and I go to church on Sundays, like I don't have to worry about that kind of suffering because all that matters is that I'm going to heaven. Right.
And then we try to transpose that to the people who are suffering now and being like, “You don't have to worry about that. Lynching?” like, “Your brothers being lynched? You don't have to worry about that, just say this prayer. And we're all gonna go to heaven like some day,” but, um, But that bypasses the journey of like, well, some of us are suffering now and Jesus like, is that, is there with these people?
Um, yeah, I don't know. Th-th there’s…there’s a certain…
It’s. It takes a lot more to engage with that, with that kind of journey and to see how like that dimension of the cross is Jesus inviting us to, as Jesus journeys through death to show that he has overcome it and invites us to it, like that part of that, like requires us to look around to the, the, like looking through the valley of the shadow of death thing. Right.
And to realize the ways that, like, that maybe that path has mirrors for us, that it's like revealing that, like, we… that there's death inside of us as individuals, there's death inside of us, like as communities and as systems and that those, we need to become aware of those in order to kind of like walk into what healing looks like now.
Wilson: Right. Yep. Which is, which is why we would be talking about this, the cross in a series on practice, because I liked your wording, you know, to journey with the Christ who does, this is different than just to, um, second hand from a great, great distance receive some of the benefits, uh, And rewards of Jesus.
And that is when, when we talk about the narrative that shapes a practice, the narrative that shapes all Christian practice is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And the, the narrative there is not just, Hey, you guys hang out here in Gallilee, you know. Stay out of the trouble. Don't risk. Anything, just stay over here, comfortable and safe.
I'm going to go do some things in Jerusalem. And when I'm done, I'll have all sorts of benefits to
Julius: Yeah,
Wilson: upon you. The story is follow me
Julius: Yeah. Yeah.
Wilson: follow me. And when Peter gets to that point where he starts to see, oh, dang. Okay. All right. If that's where we're at, let's go. I'll die with you. And even there, Jesus, doesn't say Jesus, doesn't rescind the call to follow me.
He just tells him the truth, actually right now you won't,
Julius: Hm.
Wilson: but your body's weak,
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: But the call stays. And eventually Peter does go with Christ there and that's, that's a different sort of thing. It's not just, Hey, I can sit here and receive the benefits, but to enter into it, is it to, to follow and to commune with the Christ who does this now.
Julius: Yeah. And it's, it's, it is a grace that that is part of it that, like, there is no bypassing it— that we have to be trained and formed to become heaven people. Cause like, even if like working from that framework, like we…it’s all about just the heaven later on, is it like, if you so to speak speak, like, enter the pearly gates and you're, you haven't dealt with the fact that you don't care about your neighbors and they're in heaven or like that you hate this person or you hate this type of person…
Like, can you truly enter in that kind of kingdom of God and have that be heavenly, if you haven't dealt with like that? That doesn't like, I don't think that's a switch that just flips that, that kind of compassion and empathy for others and like to, to become a just people has to be formed in us, you know, for heaven to be what it is.
Wilson: The kingdom is Jesus. The presence of God in Christ. That is the kingdom of heaven. And if Christ is the one who is going, this person is sick and suffering. We're going to go take care of them. If Jesus is like Jesus in the gospels, right then the kingdom of heaven. Isn't all right, great. Leave all the suffering.
Come into this great place and just have some like, lounge and a hammock, have some divine grapes and listen to the heavenly music while I keep taking… he's still goes like, “Come on, come on guys. There's still sick people.”
Julius: yeah.
Wilson: And it will not be until we learn to, to practice it in a way that we find the joy in going with Christ, wherever he goes. And as long as they're suffering in death, Christ isn’t… I mean, I just, I cannot imagine Jesus being like, “Meh, but I got my heaven and my throne.”
That's not the story of God. It's as long as there is suffering and death Christ is present to overcome it to, to, to hold, to grab on, to, to rescue and redeem those who are suffering there and to bring them back to heaven.
“And I'm not done till it's done.” And if he's not done till it's done. Why would we expect that the benefit would be— “Cool. You said the prayer, great. Go, I've got this great green room over here. You guys just go chill out on all the benefits of my work while I keep doing the work.” The benefits are, “Come do this work with me.”
Come be a part of the kingdom. Come be, come, come cooperate with me. Be joined in, be, be incorporated into my work to, to bring healing in life, wherever it still needs to have.
so were there, but I think just to put a point on it still seems even a little awkward to think of this as a practice. So if we think of the cross as a practice, does that concept of practice, help us to understand that called to follow Jesus better.
Julius: Well, what that question makes me think of is. One of the times that I preached while I'm working at a church was as the lectionary passage for that week had to do with, um, uh, gosh, I don't remember which book in the old Testament. Maybe the, maybe it was Exodus, I assume, but it was, the people were presumably in the wilderness being bitten by a bunch of snakes, a bunch of poisonous snakes and.
Wilson: Exodus.
Julius: Yeah, it is Exodus. Right. And then is it Moses is told to like lift up the staff with like the bronze serpent on it and people are to gaze upon it in order to, to be healed. And in kind of like the process that week of like, what do I do with that? Like I know that Jesus talks about this story and likens himself to being that serpent.
And I think there was something that clicked and hopefully this is back to like, this is, hopefully this is backed up by a biblical scholarship and is good. Um, exit Jesus of the passage, but I didn't, what that made me think of is I think what this practice, whatever we like practicing the cross is getting at of like, in order for us as a people to be healed, um, from this poison, right?
That, be that poison, like, um, systemic violence, injustice, racism, white supremacy— like in order to be healed from that poison, we have to look upon the thing that is… Like, like the people who are being bitten by the serpents had to look upon the very… image. Um, and so these people, these people were being bitten by all these snakes. And the way to get the poison out of their system was to like, look upon the very thing that was causing death, and like that was poisoning them.
And in, in practicing the cross, I think that's what, like… That's what's happening. Is part of what the cross is, is Jesus drawing our attention to that, which is destroying us and that we have to kind of confront that and see it in order to be healed— that we can't just like, pretend that these things aren't happening and that the suffering and this violence and death working in us as a people, isn't a thing. Like, we have to look upon it to address it. And, and in order— like we have to acknowledge it to walk towards healing and reconciliation together.
Wilson: Why we're thinking specifically in terms of practice is—through this whole series, but now at this point, specifically about the cross, just cards on the table, is to help us think about the cross better. But then again, not just think about it cause that's, the thing about practice is to actually do, to participate.
To live in ways where we experience, right. It's, it's one thing to know hearkening back to the intro, to this series. It's one thing to know, right? Christ won victory over sin and death. It's another to be able to like, “Okay, if that's true, then that's true in the wor-” Right. I, I preached a sermon a while ago where I made the claim that if the cross of Christ and the gospel has nothing to say, um, at the edge of the mass graves in concentration camps, and now in 2021, we can extend that, right? The mass graves in Canadian religious boarding schools
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: And, uh, the unmarked graves of lynching victims… if the cross of Christ and the gospel has nothing to say at the, the base of the lynching tree, then the gospel is not true. Right? But, if the gospel tells us about a God whose love and faithfulness can and will overcome even the worst, even the most tragic, then there is nothing more precious.
Julius: Hm.
Wilson: And so it's one thing to think. No, the gospel is that good. God is God, is that right? I mean, and that is the only thing really worthy of the word God— the name. Beyond just a word. It's not just some adjective. Um, it's, it's a name. That's the only thing worthy of the name of God. Then it's one thing to know that, it's another to begin to live salvation, to know that.
And that's where we're talking about practice in conjunction with the cross is to open us up to think about it in ways, right, that, that are better. That make more possible. But beyond that, and this is where, like the podcast can only do so much, we can generate the desire and give a little guidance. But the next thing is, is to live it, to practice the cross.
Um, and to point out what we've done in this— that, that's why this is what this episode's about, and to point out what we've intentionally done is we've consistently pointed to stories, right? You just talked about the story of Moses and the Israelites in the desert being poisoned and, and what does salvation look like?
Um, and it involves staring it, looking at it directly, naming it. Um, and we keep pointing to the stories of the cross because—and this is why we think practice is helpful— the way practice is talked about as the term, the way we're using it, a practice is always shaped by and born out of a narrative, and these are the stories.
And when you look at those stories, this is exactly what it invites us into, right? So the first thing we're talking about practicing the cross one part of it is, and this is what we see with mother Teresa. She's not just looking at wafers and wine.
Julius: Right.
Wilson: She's looking at the body and the blood. Why? Because of the story.
If it weren't for this story, she wouldn't see Christ there. And if it weren't for the story, and if she didn't see Christ there, she wouldn't see Christ the way she did in the suffering and the poor in Calcutta. The monks and the nuns who cared for people suffering from St. Anthony's fire who'd been… right.
If, if it weren't for this story, they wouldn't see the severed legs of the, the corpse of Christ in the artwork, the way that they did. And so they wouldn't have seen the severed legs of the actual victims in their convalescent beds, the way that they did. And so if we're going to practice it, we, we. We hear the story.
We learn to see that way. And then when we learned to see that way, we take it out into the world and this is, this is where it opens up. Right. We tend to think of instill. It's still, as far as our language goes, we still use the language of bearing my cross. But where this, where this piece of the tradition and the practice is lost, we use the language, bearing the cross, and we will use that word cross for something that isn't necessarily a cross we'll use it for just anything that I find inconvenient or
Julius: Yep.
Wilson: Right. But bigger than that, this teaches you. Where is the cross? The cross is where sin and death is at work in me or outside of me. And how do I see Christ there? And then if I hear it. Right. If I hear the story, and if I'm looking at this as a practice, then it's not just an exercise in naming crosses, but it's an exercise in actually following Jesus, answering in our own time in our place. Because he's not just someone who carried out a transaction 2000 years ago, he's present.
He’s—because of what he's done to, to defeat death from the inside, he's present each place death tries to gain more ground to continue to extend his work. And our, our call, our practice of the cross is, is born out of that sort of discernment to be able to say, “How do I answer that call right now to follow you?”
Julius: Mm.
Wilson: And like we said, if his kingdom is his presence, and if his presence leads us into a moment, a situation circumstances to naming and seeing places where the poison is killing us, then it's a discernment of like, what is he doing and how do I join?
Julius: Yeah.
MEDITATION
What love would lead Jesus to allow himself to be broken just so God could still be with us in our brokenness? The interplay of the beginning and the climax of the gospel story (which is really the interplay of the beginning and the climax of all things), allows us to see that the God breathing life into this story is not a God who sits back and watches us get torn apart, then says, "Well, if you ask just right, I'll see what I can do." Or, "Well, I've given you to key to thinking about how we can make some sense of all this senseless suffering. Be grateful for that."
No. This God also inhabits the story. The same God who held and formed you is closer than your own breath. So close, that when you get torn apart, Christ gets torn apart with you.
This is my body, broken for you.
The more we live into our Christian identity, the more we see the story of Jesus's physical body as our own.
Jesus was not on the cross because God was mad at us for eating the wrong fruit or looking at porn or insulting another person. God was mad at the things that steal life from God's beloved children. Walk into a hospital room where someone you love is suffering and you will not yell at the person for being sick. But you will feel anger in that room. Anger at the injustice and disease and broken desires that keep sending us back to the things that will kill us. Such is God's wrath.
Love held Jesus to the cross to absorb the power from the things that kill us. To absorb the power from the things that have been done to us. And to rob the power from the things we have done to others.
King of the Jews! With every insult Jesus absorbed, he also absorbed the hurt caused by a racist slur. With each lash on his back, the pain inflicted by a fist or distant and uncaring stare. With the rigged jury, the effects of systemic injustice.
This is why Jesus gave his body and died. To take all our sin and brokenness as his. So he can embrace us, where we actually live. On the cross, Jesus was the teenager who was abused and ignored. On the cross, God is the woman who had a vicious rumor destroy her career and reputation. On the cross, Jesus is anyone and everyone when they have something taken from their body they can never get back.
Jesus was on the cross to be closer to us than we can imagine, close enough to hold every body broken by abuse, torched and blistered by St. Anthony's fires, or hung from trees and light poles by bloodthirsty mobs ...
This is my body, broken for you ...
So Cone and his childhood congregation could sing "I was there when they whipped Him up an' dey whipped Him down ..."
What a strange way for heaven and earth to get tangled up again. It is the right way, though, if hope is going to be real and bodily. Whatever chaos happens, God is always standing between us and the nothing toward which we are hell bent. With Jesus, God enters it. So we can commune with God, even in the darkest places.
He is our origin, and our new beginning, because he is Emmanuel, God with us.
What Cone can help us look for, and learn to see is also what the Issenheim Altarpiece and, I believe, the Gospel of Matthew, wants to help us see: Jesus.
A Savior that unites his Divinity not just to his own human nature, but who is also so close to us that his broken body and mangled human soul mingles so intimately with our broken bodies and distorted souls that we, on our end, might struggle to keep straight whose bits are whose bits,
And if Jesus can accomplish that, then what happens to our bodies when the Father calls the Son who relentlessly holds us back out of the nothingness of the grave?
[Communion and Altarpiece together]