As we enter into the paradox of Holy Week, I want us to consider what it means to follow a God whose story includes both the brutality of crucifixion and the mysterious wonder of resurrection? And what bearing does following this Both-And God have on our lives?
On one side of the paradox, we are called to be Resurrection People. It’s our job to be the physical representation of Jesus on earth. This means partnering with God to bring healing and wholeness to our corner of the world which is continually enduring hopelessness and death. This means we must always believe God is at work, and we must be on the hunt for God in everything.
But this call to be Resurrection People also requires us to be Crucifixion People. We can’t have life without death. Everyday we are challenged to grapple with grief while at the same time embracing joy. Being both Resurrection and Crucifixion People requires us to stay in this tension each day. We get to rise to the challenge of sitting with one another in times of suffering or grief, not pushing past with positive remarks or hopes for the future. Often, there are no words to be said, just the gift of our presence. At the same time, we get to hunt for God’s constant graces, the big and small joys that pop up all the while we grieve.
I want to push further into what it means to be Crucifixion People. There is a book I read years ago in one of my grad school classes entitled Cruciformity. Michael Gorman came up with this word “cruciformity” to describe the type of life Christians are called to live. Cruciformity means conformity to the crucified Christ. To live Cruciform, we must enter into the mess of the Cross. The thing about Christ’s crucifixion is we do not understand what crucifixion meant for the people who witnessed it first hand. We like to beautify the cross, to picture it adorned with flowers on Easter Sunday or formed out of milk chocolate in our Easter Baskets. The truth is far more grotesque. Professor Michael Gorman opened my eyes to the reality of Jesus’ death:
Crucifixion was first-century Rome’s most insidious and intimidating instrument of power and political control. It was Rome’s torturous, violent method of handling those who were perceived to threaten the empire’s ‘peace and security;” everyone in the empire knew of the ‘terror of the cross.’ To suffer crucifixion was to suffer the most shameful death possible. Moreover, for Jews a crucified person was a person cursed, since ‘anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse’ (Deut 21:21).
Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross
It’s shocking and even absurd that we Christians would make this demoralizing death device the central symbol of our devotion. It’s ridiculous really. But that’s life in God’s Kingdom – there’s always more than meets the eye. Jesus’ death wasn’t just death. It was a permanent sacrifice for sins. It was the greatest demonstration of love. It was forever breaking the power of death and inviting us into God’s presence.
Even for those of us who know the Resurrection is coming, it is painful, and almost impossible to stay within the suffering of Good Friday, isn’t it? To linger in the grief, to behold the intensity and brutality of the Cross. It’s much cleaner and much more cheerful to rush ahead, knowing “Sunday’s coming!”
But you see, it’s in pondering the mess of the Cross where we encounter the deep, deep love of God. It is in the Cross where we “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God” (I John 3:1). This Person called Love wasn’t willing to keep its distance. This Love was willing to get messy, to put on limitations of human skin, to establish friendships with sometimes-irritating people, and to submit to the most horrifying and humiliating form of death.
When we become willing to enter the mess of the Cross, we become willing to enter the mess of humanity and to allow the Love of God to redeem our own messy humanity.
We must be Both/And People: People of the Resurrection and People of the Crucifixion. We are called to both repent and to rejoice in our salvation. We are called to both sit with grief and to be instruments of God’s peace. We are called to enter into the mess of the Cross and the mess of our world and the mess of our own hearts and to seek God’s plan for wholeness.
So what is Jesus inviting you into today? Do you need to lean into hope? Or sit with the grief? Do you need the Spirit’s help to exist in the paradox?
